Were there many immigrants during the Qing Dynasty?

The Qing dynasty did prohibit Han Chinese from entering the northeast, but it was not enough.

The northeast is equal to the reserve of the Jurchen nationality, or the self-proclaimed "ancestral land", and naturally it will not agree to other nationalities' possession. However, during the Qing Dynasty, there were a large number of development activities led by Manchu nobles in Northeast China, such as hunting, logging and mining, which required a lot of labor. During the Qing dynasty, most Han immigrants went to the northeast in this way, but of course the number was not too much.

Earlier, the Northeast was developed from the Zhou Dynasty, and the Han nationality had existed for a long time. I remember that there was a "Yan State" whose territory reached Liaodong. During the Ming dynasty, due to resources and wars, the northeast was the most developed and there were many immigrants. Later, some immigrants took root in the northeast and lived permanently.

The last large-scale migration wave in modern times was the late Qing Dynasty and the early Republic of China. At that time, North China had a large population, landlords occupied land and land was scarce. Just after the Qing dynasty, the national strength was weak, the territory was divided, and farmers spontaneously immigrated on a large scale. Local warlords certainly welcome the arrival of laborers.

Modern northeast immigrants mainly came from Shandong and Hebei.

During the Japanese occupation, immigration almost stagnated. After 1949, in order to develop the resources in Northeast China, small-scale immigrants appeared.