What impact did the invasion of Guandong in the late Qing Dynasty have on the Northeast?

In the minds of the rulers of the Qing Dynasty, Heilongjiang, Changbai Mountain and Shengjing were all regarded as the birthplace of their nation. Because when their ancestors were still called Mohe people, they created the Bohai Kingdom, which had been in existence for more than 200 years. After the demise of the Bohai Kingdom, the Heishui Mohe tribe transformed into Jurchens and established the Jin Kingdom that stood side by side with the Southern Song Dynasty. Since the Manchus stepped onto the stage of history and entered the ranks of the Chinese nation, they have completely changed the state of the Ming Dynasty in which the Northeastern Jianzhou Jurchens, Haixi Jurchens, and Savage Jurchens were not subordinate to each other and operated independently, forming a whole nation. Therefore, the rulers of the Qing Dynasty designated Heilongjiang as the birthplace of their ancestors; Changbai Mountain as the birthplace of their ancestors, and combined them with Hetuala City (now Yongling, Xinbin County, Fushun City, Liaoning Province) where Nurhaci founded town) are equally important.

While the rulers of the Qing Dynasty were busy completing their hegemony of unifying China, the "land of their ancestors" that had been repeatedly devastated by wars seemed a little desolate. Especially after the Qing Dynasty entered the customs, the three eastern provinces became even more desolate. Therefore, after the Qing Dynasty unified the country, it specially promulgated the "Liaodong Recruitment Regulations for Reclamation" to encourage farmers in the pass to immigrate to the northeast in order to restore the prosperity and glory of the "Longxing Land".

At this time, the Central Plains provinces experienced Li Zicheng’s uprising and the Qing troops went south, and the working people lost their land one after another. In particular, the rulers of the Qing Dynasty believed that "Manchu and Han conflicts are prone to disputes," so they did not care about the owners. It was still ownerless land, and as long as the Manchu nobles took a fancy to it, they could occupy it at will. For a time, entire villages and entire villages of poor working people lost their land, were driven out of their homes, and became homeless without land or home. The promulgation of the "Regulations on Recruiting People for Reclamation in Liaodong" gave desperate workers hope for life. They rushed to Liaodong in droves with their families. Here, they can not only obtain land that will never be fully cultivated, but also engage in ginseng gathering, hunting, logging and mining, and even run into the mountains and forests to become bandits. As a result, the Northeast became a paradise for Han people who had lost their land in the Central Plains provinces and never left. Northeastern agriculture, which had been damaged by wars during the Ming and Qing Dynasties, was restored.

However, the good times did not last long. The rulers of the Qing Dynasty believed that in the "land of Longxing" of their ancestors, Manchus and Han people lived together, and the folk customs were no longer simple, and the language, riding and shooting skills were also poor. It is not so pure. Therefore, in the seventh year of Kangxi, the Qing government abolished the "Regulations on Recruiting People for Reclamation in Liaodong" and at the same time built willow bars to set the Changbai Mountain area and the middle and lower reaches of the Songhua River as closed areas, prohibiting Han people from With the inflow, thousands of miles of fertile farmland originally cultivated have become barren and overgrown. Coupled with the continuous deployment of Manchu soldiers from the Eight Banners to fight in the customs, the Northeast, which accounts for one-fifth of the country's area, has a population of only 0.1% of the country's population, with an average population density of less than 2 people per square kilometer.

However, this does not stop the working people in the pass from yearning for the fertile soil of the Northeast. In order to make a living, they go through thorns and climb mountains and ridges, evading the government's strict inspections and guarding the roads, just like breaking through the gates of hell, to the Northeast. From then on, the term "crossing the Guandong" came into being, and this journey lasted for more than two hundred years.

In the middle and late Qing Dynasty, with the invasion of foreign powers and the increasingly acute domestic conflicts, the Manchu royal family no longer cared about their "Longxing Land", and the Northeast region began to expand again. The ban was lifted, and special agencies were set up in the Northeast to manage homeless affairs. For example, the Changchun Office was established at that time.

The Northeast experienced more than 200 years from encouraging Han people to open up land, to closing the ban, loosening the ban, and then opening the ban, and from allowing people to privately cultivate land to recruiting people to open land. During this historical evolution, the customs in the pass have changed. The Han people gradually became the protagonists in the Northeast. They not only turned the vast wilderness of the Northeast into thousands of miles of fertile fields, but also brought the civilization of the pass here, allowing the native residents of the Northeast to gradually walk out of the forests and wastelands, get rid of the primitive prehistoric state, and create a unique Northeast civilization. , which laid the foundation for Northeast China to become the cradle of the Republic of China after the founding of the People's Republic of China.