Outside Gubeikou is the Jehol —— The cultural root-seeking journey of the descendants of Guangdong's uprooted people.

Outside Gubeikou is the Jehol —— The cultural root-seeking journey of the descendants of Guangdong's uprooted people.

About 300 years ago, at noon in mid-spring, the geese returned to the north and the sun was warm. Two brothers, Ren Xu and Xu Xin, started from their hometown in Shandong, followed the northern reclamation people, went north via Zhili, bypassed Beijing, went out of Gubeikou, entered the boundary beyond the Great Wall, stayed in several refugee shacks for a short time, and finally came to the destination of their trip, a place they later called Huangtuliang. Several fellow villagers who came early last year warmly greeted them, although there were only a few newly dug potherbs dipped in sauce and a handful of porridge and rice soup in a few rough porcelain bowls with gaps.

? After dinner, Ren Xu, who studied Chinese medicine for a few days, took out a homespun pocket from his pocket. After opening it, there are some rough papers. Ren Xu read word for word to the people around him in the order of the recipients. In the spring outside the Great Wall, some people began to sob with a Shandong accent, which was out of harmony with the rough scenery in the surrounding north, while the distant mountains were paler and the silent noon was even more silent.

After settling down a little, I walked out of the shack built by my fellow villagers, not far from the wasteland grassland being reclaimed. The two brothers turned out to be fishermen handed down from generation to generation. Although a few months ago, they were still mending fishing nets for their parents and a few younger brothers who had not yet fully grown up in their hometown near the sea, at this time, they looked at each other, rolled up their ragged trouser legs, picked up strange farm tools and clumsily waved their first hoe in a distant foreign land. ...

This is a scene restoration. During the reign of Gan Yong in Qing Dynasty, the most common family among countless refugees went to the north to reclaim land. Out of respect for their ancestors, the description of this scene has been reconstructed warmly, but this great migration in history may be far more cruel than this scene. There are many accurate historical records. During the years of Kang, Yong and Gan, there were many locust plagues and droughts in Shandong, Henan and Hebei. When the disaster is serious, people don't have enough to eat and there are refugees everywhere. In the far north, there is a fertile Yuan Ye that is said to be rich in aquatic plants and uncultivated, so there are always brave people who flee privately to find a way out. After being preserved for a long time, the rulers of the Qing Dynasty had to let go of the border ban originally customized by their ancestors and began to implement the policy of "borrowing land to support the people". "Today's refugees are unusual. If the inspection is too strict, the next generation will have no way out ... so that they don't have to be too strict and make some changes to help the disaster. " (Records of Emperor Gaozong of the Qing Dynasty)? . As soon as the hole opened, a large number of hungry victims rushed to the north.

Different from the influx of farmers from Guanzhong in the late Qing Dynasty and the early Republic of China, the destination of these refugees in history is Jehol, an administrative region that has disappeared, and its jurisdiction is generally located in the vast areas north of the Great Wall, south of Daxing 'anling, west of Liaohe and east of Duolun. This area was once one of the important cradles of Chinese civilization, and the dragon image inherited by Hongshan Culture is still an important totem of the Chinese nation. Thousands of years of history, Shanrong, Xianbei, Xi, Qidan, Jurchen, Mongolia, Manchu and other ethnic groups have left their unique marks here. With the large-scale refugees going north, the unique multicultural puzzle in this area has been basically completed, and a stable structural system has been passed down to this day. At the same time, it also objectively opened the prelude to the "de-orientalization" immigration tide in later generations.

However, how long will it take to pass, waiting for these hungry people are not only distant roads, diseases, famines, beasts, bandits, chaos, but also the unknown future. Even today, hundreds of years later, we can still feel the heavy footsteps of future generations from their distant and broken memories of that era.

Among the Xu brothers, the elder brother later described it to his descendants more than once. Of the dozen people who set out with the two brothers at the same time, only two brothers arrived at their destination after twists and turns. Others, some tired of going back the same way, some changed their destinations halfway, and more, abandoned their thin bodies on the way to more than 1000 kilometers of customs clearance. The two brothers were able to arrive smoothly because their brother Ren Xu studied Chinese medicine for a period of time in his hometown, and his medical knowledge was shallow. After eating all his carry-on food, there were only a few coppers left in his pocket. When I was hesitating to move on, I was spotted by a group of caravans passing by, and then I arrived at my destination smoothly, and only then did I have the opening scene.

Looking up relevant local chronicles, we will notice an interesting phenomenon. In this area, the names of villages are very distinctive. Among them, villages in the name of "Wopu" can be seen everywhere. "Wopu" is interpreted by Baidu Encyclopedia as "a shack for sleeping". Now this simple shed can still be seen around Gua Tian vegetable fields in the northern countryside. A few pieces of wood are built into a herringbone frame, covered with branches, then covered with soil mixed with straw, and covered with a layer of thatch made from local materials. Extremely simple building materials have covered the wind and sun, and also supported the displaced people's desire for survival. Another high-frequency word in village names is "ditch", which is related to geographical factors. The local climate is semi-arid continental monsoon, and there are no winding rivers, but people can't survive without water. Their homes must be built on water, and most of the springs gush out from ditches, so living in ditches to get water is a necessary means of survival at that time. We know that the name of a village is often a reflection of its original state, and other areas in the north also use "Wopu" and "Gou" as village names, but such a large area and high frequency are extremely rare. It can be recalled that in those days, in this land, in the depths of all kinds of ravines that were forbidden to pass, those ragged refugees walked out of the wopu every morning and started their day's work early, not daring to stop. Occasionally, a group of wild birds fly by. They look at the sky and their eyes are moved. I don't know whether they are lucky or homesick

The Jehol area where these refugees flocked is actually not the legendary wilderness. From the geographical and climatic characteristics, the local area is in the transition zone between Mongolian Plateau, Daxing 'anling and North China Plain. The terrain is mainly mountainous and hilly, the soil is mostly loess and sandy soil, and the surface runoff is less. This area belongs to the semi-arid continental monsoon climate zone in the middle temperate zone, with long and cold winter, dry and windy spring, short and hot summer, concentrated rain, short autumn, rapid temperature drop and early frost arrival. These geographical and climatic terms don't need a deep professional background, but they can also make us understand one thing, that is, it is not an ideal environment for traditional planting. The experience of these immigrants also proves this fact. There are frequent disasters in this area, and droughts, sandstorms, floods, hail and earthquakes can be found in various historical records.

More unfortunately, from a strategic point of view, the geographical location of the Jehol area is extremely important. Located in the throat of the country, backed by the Mongolian Plateau, overlooking the Gyeonggi area. It is also another passage to Beijing except Shanhaiguan in the three northeastern provinces. It has always been a battleground for military strategists, with fierce folk customs and numerous wars. Since ancient times, it has been the burial place of the border guards in western Liaoning in ancient poems. Since Kang, Yong and Gan, the major wars that took the local area as an outpost or occurred in the local area included the Battle of Pacifying galdan, Bering Incident, Railway Incident, Boxer Rebellion Incident, the Battle of Direct Serve, and the Jehol War of Resistance. In addition to large-scale wars, it is also bandits everywhere around us that cause more suffering to the people. During the War of Liberation alone, there were more than 450 famous gangs and more than 50,000 bandits in this area. As for those temporary gangs without names, there are countless more. In this case, the living conditions of the local people can be imagined. Of course, there are also unprovoked man-made disasters caused by political factors. During the Japanese occupation, this area was selected as the experimental area of plague bacterial weapons by the infamous 73 1 Army. 1in July, 942, more than 800 people died of plague infection that year by airdropping fleas with bacteria. In the following years, during the incubation period of this experimental bacterium, plague suddenly occurred in Aohan and Onniute areas.

Continue to pay attention to the protagonist of this article. Time flies like water, and despite all kinds of hardships, life is changing tenaciously from generation to generation. A few years later, time has entered the 20th century. After a descendant of the Xu brothers accidentally went to Shandong for a business trip, he suddenly realized that despite hundreds of years, the local customs of his hometown still kept traces of his hometown thousands of miles away.

In a region's cultural heritage, eating habits must be the most intuitive representative. Southerners like sweet and Sichuanese like spicy, which is their distinctive cultural imprint. No one can make a rough and unconstrained Mongolian man eat only a small dish of exquisite sashimi, and it is impossible to imagine that a gentle and delicate Jiangsu and Zhejiang woman can even dry three bowls of 62-degree grassland liquor with a banquet.

Compared with most neighboring areas, people's eating habits in this area obviously bear traces of Qilu and its surrounding areas. Most of them are salty. I prefer strong ginger to garlic, and the sauce is delicious. An interesting example is that in Inner Mongolia, another immigrant group, descendants of Shanxi and Shaanxi who once traveled westward, often has a question when they are in deep contact with people in this area: Why do they put soy sauce in almost all their cooking? Not vinegar? Even the minced garlic when eating jiaozi should be mixed with soy sauce.

Small details of life reflect a deep-seated cultural problem. Aside from the refined dishes improved in modern cities, the application of soy sauce in most people's homes in this place is immeasurable. When cooking, an important procedure is to pour a few drops of red-brown, crystal clear wine into the wok after the onions and garlic are put in. Moreover, the most exquisite dishes must not be matched with all kinds of soy sauce that has been prepared and seasoned in the supermarket, but with genuine soy sauce that has just been brewed in the local workshop, so that the taste can stimulate the taste buds and stimulate the appetite to the greatest extent.

Another obvious phenomenon is that there is often a cast iron hammer that has not been seen for a long time among the old objects handed down from many families in this area. This almost lost cooker is used to make a kind of food with regional characteristics-pancakes. Its shape and usage are no different from those in Shandong today. Even the way to eat pancakes echoes the land of Qilu thousands of miles away. Huang Cancan just made pancakes, rolled with a green onion dipped in sauce and served with a bowl of coarse cereal porridge, which is the most comfortable dinner for men who have worked in the local farmland all day.

In addition to staple food, some rare snacks can better reflect the problem. In this area, there is an insect that only appears after three days of rain. It's called "water girl" It is black, with a long beard, a brown belly and wings. Males are good at flying and females are good at crawling. The scientific name of this insect should be "Anoplophora longicorn". After being caught by the local people, they plucked off their wings, pinched their heads, removed their horns, salted them with salt and fried them with oil. Excellent taste, similar to dry fried silkworm chrysalis, but a little crisp, close to air-dried beef, but a little fishy. Especially for females, a worm seed is wrapped in a big belly, which melts in the mouth and smells abnormal. A few years later, a student who left his hometown from this place was recalled by heavy rain one day. When he talked about this kind of alternative food in the dormitory with great interest, his Shandong classmates were surprised to find that the name and eating method of this thing were exactly the same as theirs.

For a long time, linguists have been divided on the language classification in this area, but the basic view is the transition between Beijing Mandarin and northeastern mandarin, but it is inextricably linked with Hebei, Shandong and Henan Mandarin. Its grammar is basically similar to that of northeastern mandarin, its vocabulary is similar to that of Beijing Mandarin, and its intonation should be a mixture of the pronunciation habits of Beijing dialect, Northeast dialect, Shandong dialect and even some Mongolian languages.

This dialect area covers an extremely wide area, from the present northern part of Hebei Province in the south to Duolun in Inner Mongolia in the west, to Dongwuzhumuqin Banner in the north, to Chaoyang in Liaoning Province and Naiman and Kailu in Tongliao City in Inner Mongolia in the east, with a population of about100000. With another wave of population migration after the reform and opening up, this dialect type tends to extend in all directions. Nowadays, this highly recognizable accent can often be heard in Hubao 'e, western Inner Mongolia, Shenyang-Dalian, Liaoning and even Beijing-Tianjin.

When observing this special dialect area, there is an interesting phenomenon worthy of attention. In this dialect area, there is an extremely rare phenomenon of "dialect island" in the northern region. Balihan Town, Ningcheng County, Chifeng City, at the junction of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, Hebei Province and Liaoning Province, has long been famous for its rich wine. Ningcheng Laojiao was once called "Maotai beyond the Great Wall" and its reputation was well-known throughout the country. Outsiders come because of wine, and there is often a question when they leave. Why is the dialect accent of the local people so different from that of the neighboring areas? This "dialect island" in Fiona Fang is only about 30 kilometers. Outside this range, people's voices are obviously different. Some villages are even separated by a road and a hill, but their accents are quite different. If the language in the surrounding area is only a mixture of many components of Shandong dialect, then this "isolated island dialect" can be completely classified as Shandong dialect. In recent years, linguists have realized that this dialect is indeed a special type of Jilu Mandarin thousands of miles away. Different from the "dialect island" areas formed in some places in the south due to steep terrain and traffic barriers, the phenomenon of "dialect island" in this area has no obvious geographical factors and frequent foreign exchanges and marriages. As for the reason, it can only be attributed to the strong homesickness of a few immigrants in Shanhaiguan hundreds of years ago.

Since the reform and opening up, with the continuous development of economy and society and the more frequent population mobility, the homogenization of living habits in various regions is obvious, and some unique regional cultural symbols are disappearing. But at least half a century ago, some unique folk customs in Shandong and its surrounding areas can still be found here.

For example, young and old are orderly. Especially in the local countryside, there is a habit of ranking big, which originates from the same ancestor and various branches of the clan. All cousins should be lined up in order of age. Except for the same surname, one word in the name must be the same. After a long time, after several generations, some sons and nephews are white-haired, but uncles and nephews may just come of age, but in formal occasions such as family sacrifices, weddings and funerals, they all know who is sitting there and who should toast, and they will never make mistakes in the scene.

For example, respecting teachers and attaching importance to teaching. Compared with the surrounding areas, this area has always been a well-known "educational highland", with obvious advantages in the popularization of basic education, the construction of educational facilities and the number of students enrolled in the college entrance examination. The reason lies in the unique cultural memory of Confucius and Mencius' hometown, which makes this area have universal respect for the education industry. The concept of "no matter how poor you are, you can't be poor in education, and no matter how bitter you are, you can't be poor in students" has been completely and persistently transplanted to this land from your distant hometown, and has gradually taken root and sprouted. A child who studies well will become an example and pride of his neighbors. As long as he studies hard, he can get the best treatment at home.

Like birth and death. After giving birth, the first thing for family members is to hang a red cloth at the door to remind outsiders not to rush into the room. The baby survived smoothly, and relatives and friends around him will come to "lead Tommy" one after another. The gift is not complicated or expensive, just a few pounds of eggs and a few bundles of dried noodles. The picture shows the celebration and blessing. When young people get married, there will be a "heart-to-heart wine" ceremony after the evening. Amid the laughter and boos of onlookers, the husband and wife completed an important life baptism. On New Year's Eve, the men in the family will go to the family cemetery to "invite the family to visit the family hall", and then go to "send the family hall" on the second day of the first month to let the deceased ancestors come back and have fun with their children and grandchildren in the New Year. In the film Red Sorghum set in Jiaodong, Shandong Province, "my grandmother" was killed by the Japanese army, and "my father" shouted for her: "Mom, mom, go to the southwest, a long way, a wide treasure ship! Mom, mom, go to the southwest, that embarrassing good horse, and it's full of money! " . In this area, when the old man dies, the eldest son will stand on the bench with a rolling pin in his hand, facing southwest, bend down and knock on the bench at his feet, and then stand up straight and shout, "Niang-Niang-Southwest Avenue, enough money is enough, fire makes money, aquatic boats ..."

With the passage of time, most of the young descendants who immigrated 300 years ago have forgotten the migration process of their ancestors. Only in the memory of some old people, there are some memories about their hometown. With the profound changes in economic structure and social development, this area is as vibrant and colorful as other places in China's 9.6 million square kilometers of land. Even in the most remote villages, the highly developed transportation system and three-dimensional information dissemination mode ensure that people here can conform to the modern lifestyle. After consciously merging many cultural fragments, today we can still touch and sort out the basic context of local economic and social development after the arrival of these immigrants.

In the early Qing Dynasty, the rulers strictly implemented the border ban policy in order to prevent the blending of Mongolian and Chinese nationalities. As early as the 12th year of Shunzhi (1655), the imperial court ordered mainland farmers not to farm outside their mouths. In the seventh year of Kangxi (1668), the northeast was banned, and checkpoints were set up at nine side doors, including Shanhaiguan and xifengkou, to prevent refugees from exporting. The Jehol area is connected with the Northeast, which is naturally prohibited. Even if the policy of "borrowing land to support the people" was later implemented because of the current situation, its original intention was not to let go of the border ban and enrich the people, but to prevent the people from changing. Moreover, the implementation of this policy is accompanied by many conditions. In the 22nd year of Kangxi (1683), it was stipulated: "Anyone who exports from the mainland and does business and farming in Mongolia shall not marry a Mongolian woman. Private marriage, find out, divorce with a married woman, and return it to her family; Those who marry privately shall be punished according to local regulations; Mongolians know each other, get married and agree, and their livestock will be punished by 19. " . The Yongzheng dynasty also stipulated: "People who farm land ... are not allowed to take their wives ... after the autumn harvest, they are allowed to enter, and when they farm land every year, they are exported to farm." But in any case, the policy of "borrowing land to support the people" was finally implemented smoothly, which made the Qing rulers who were troubled by the refugee problem breathe a sigh of relief. Although this policy has experienced many vacillations, the historical trend has become irresistible, and finally formed the basic pattern of common life, unity and friendship among local ethnic groups today.

Focus on the era when the Xu Shi brothers went out to make a living. Han refugees arrived in Shanhaiguan and were greatly welcomed by local Mongolian nobles at that time. They rented idle land to them for farming and collected taxes from it, and later they entered other industries one after another, enriching the local economic form and making social life more convenient. A direct and obvious example: In the early Qing Dynasty, there was no food in Mongolia, and when there was famine, it had to be transported to inland warehouses for relief. However, during the Qianlong period, the amount of grain stored was considerable. According to the statistics of forty-nine years of Qianlong (1784), there are 44,000 stones in the front of Harqin Right Banner in Jehol area alone. ? Even the rulers of the Qing dynasty realized the positive role of the policy of "borrowing land to support the people". "Nowadays, there are many people living and farming outside the border, which is a bumper harvest compared with the previous year. People in the nearby capital depend on this valley, which is of great benefit "("Qing Sheng Shi Lu ").

The migration and flow of population and the formation of ethnic exchanges have objectively promoted the rapid development of the city. In the early years of Qianlong, the local settlement form was still scattered. According to "Emperor Gaozong of the Qing Dynasty", in the early years of Qianlong, "Jehol is vast and ravines are dangerous, and people who came from afar to reclaim land scattered among them, crossing the border and making mistakes with Mongolia. "With the development of time, the population began to be dense, followed by villages and villages, with smoke everywhere and cities gradually forming. For example, in the twenty-second year of Qianlong, Wulanhada Street (now Hongshan District, Chifeng City) in Beirehe has begun to take shape and become a gathering place for agriculture and business circles outside the customs. "Nine Streets and Three Cities" gradually formed, and the market was extremely prosperous. Bagou Street (now Pingquan County, Hebei Province) adjacent to Chifeng has gradually become a commercial port, with five lines and eight factories on both sides of the street and more than 200 famous firms. " Hada, who can't be beaten, can't fill the eight ditches. "This comes from this.

The situation of Mongolian and Chinese living together has gradually changed the lifestyle of local Mongolian herders. In the process of changing from nomadism to farming, ethnic exchanges are frequent, cultural and life differences are gradually narrowing, and Mongolian-Chinese intermarriage, which was explicitly prohibited by the Qing government, also began to occur continuously. However, due to the objective factors in the early stage, most of these marriages took the form of concealment. Until August 16th, the second year of Xuantong in Qing Dynasty (A.D. 19 10), the Qing court issued a decree to completely lift the "ban", in which it was announced that "those who intermarry between Mongolian and Chinese will be given red flowers by the government as a token of their appreciation". Since then, Mongolian-Chinese intermarriage has been legalized and its scale has been expanding. Mr. Ma Rong, a famous sociologist in China and former director of Peking University Institute of Social Anthropology, paid close attention to the phenomenon of Mongolian-Chinese intermarriage in this area and made a detailed study. The research results were published in Philosophy and Social Sciences Edition of Journal of Peking University (No.3, 1988). According to the field survey of 2089 households in this area at that time, 13.2% of local Han male heads of households married Mongolian women, and 15.2% of Mongolian male heads of households married Han women. Among them, the higher the education level of the people surveyed, the more common inter-ethnic marriage. Extensive intermarriage has promoted the harmony of ethnic relations, and this area is still a model area for ethnic unity and progress.

Time flies, fleeting, and 300 years have passed. People living in this land, the pace of life is also close to the pulse of the times, high-rise buildings have sprung up, and vehicles are constantly flowing. And the descendants of those visitors from Shanhaiguan Pass, after several generations of blood communication and continuous absorption and integration of ideas, have already had their own unique cultural imprint. People here not only like to drink milk tea and eat meat, but also are good at tasting Sichuan, Hunan, Shandong and Guangdong dishes. There are not only gifts and hard work from Qilu people, but also hospitable atmosphere from grassland people. Tai Ji Chuan and Mongolian dances are staged alternately in the community cultural room, and the grassland cultural sculptures in the street park are in harmony with the buildings with arches and cornices not far away.

Finally, let's follow the blood of a family to explore upwards, and once again remember those people who have left their homes and whose names are about to disappear in the long river of history.

This day is the Lantern Festival, a festival for people to get together with their families, and a time to remember their ancestors. After nightfall, although it is remote, the small town outside the Great Wall is also brightly lit. In a courtyard on the edge of the city, firecrackers began to faint outside the window, and the cold wind was still chilly, but after all, it was the New Year. After the men at home paid homage to their ancestors, an old man still talked about those old things with a pious expression, although several young descendants next to him were attracted by mobile phones and did not listen to the old man seriously. About those ancestors who came from a foreign land, it was too long ago for them. Integrating those concepts that are no longer clear from grandpa's thoughts is probably just an impression:

Three hundred years ago, a pair of brothers followed a Mongolian business group and stumbled on the way north. They looked back at Gubeikou in the southwest. At that time, they might not have thought that the blue wall in the distance and the broken fishing boat that could not be seen in the distance said goodbye at that moment. Three hundred years later, among the two brothers, the descendants of the eldest brother still retain the tradition of eating pancakes and their natural love for thick ginger and heavy garlic. The memory in their blood has changed after thousands of miles of local migration and hundreds of years. My brother died in a refugee land dispute, leaving only a blank loess in a foreign land more than 1000 kilometers away from home.