The origin, migration and distribution of the surname "Chen"?

The origin and development of the Chen surname

"Zhang Wang, Li Zhao and Chen are half the people in the world." There is also a saying in Taiwan that "Chen Lin is half the world", which shows that the surname Chen is also the same in our country. One of the popular surnames. The surname Chen originated from Hu Gong Guiman. It has the same origin as the five surnames Gui, Tian, ??Yao and Hu. It is known as the "Five Surnames of Guirui" in history. Its blood ancestor is Yu Shun, one of the Five Emperors. "Guirui", the ancient water name, also known as "Weirui", is located in today's Yongjinan, Shanxi Province. It originates from Mount Li and flows into the Yellow River in the west. Emperor Shun's original surname was Yao, and he got the surname Gui because he lived in Guirui. Zheng Qiao's "Tongzhi Clan Brief" said: "Yu has two surnames, Yao and Gui. The surname is Yao because he was born in Yao Xu, and the surname is Gui because he lives in Guishui."

The descendant of Yushun was the Chen family in the Zhou Dynasty. According to historical records, Shun's ancestors acted as the screen, and behind the scenes was Gu Gu. When Shun was a commoner, he gained the trust of Emperor Yao with his virtues. Yao married Shun with his two daughters, Ehuang and Nvying, and later ceded power to Shun. After Shun, Yu gained the throne. Yu's son Qi established the Xia Dynasty and granted Shun's eldest son Shangjun the title of Yu (now Yucheng, Henan). The surname Yu originated from this. After that, Shun's descendants had titles intermittently, until the late Shang Dynasty, when Shun's descendant Fu Fu (also known as Fu Fu) surrendered to King Wen of Zhou and served as an official of Tao Zheng with meritorious service. King Wu of Zhou destroyed Shang Zhou and established the Zhou Dynasty. King Wu married his eldest daughter Daji to Guiman, the son of Yan's father, and granted Guiman the title of Chen Di (today's Huaiyang, Henan), establishing the Chen Kingdom. Gui Man was called Chen Hu Gong, and some of his descendants took the country as their surname, thus giving birth to the Chen surname family; some took the posthumous title as their surname, giving rise to the Hu surname family.

The Chen surname family branched off into the Tian surname in the middle of the Spring and Autumn Period. During the reign of Duke Chen Li, a civil strife broke out in Chen State to compete for the throne. During the civil strife, Chen Wan, son of Duke Chen Li, fled to Qi State for refuge. To avoid disaster, he changed his surname to Tian. Chen Wan is the ancestor of the surname Tian. Chen Wan was treated politely in Qi State and was appointed as Gongzheng. After his death, he was given the posthumous title of Jing Zhong. This matter is recorded in "Zuo Zhuan" and "Historical Records".

The Tian family, the descendants of Chen Wan, gradually developed in Qi State. By the fifth generation, his grandson Tian Qi became the official of Duke Jinggong of Qi. Later, the Tian family became the prime minister of Qi State for generations and monopolized the political power of Qi State. Like a puppet. When Tian Wuyu, Tian Chang and others were ministers of Jiang Qi, in order to win the hearts and minds of the people of Qi, they did not hesitate to give benefits to the people at any economic cost in the late Spring and Autumn Period. They were called "buying the country with generous gifts", and finally the people's hearts came to them. By the time of the tenth generation, Sun Tianhe finally captured the Qi Kingdom with the Jiang surname. Tian He deposed Qi Kanggong and established himself as Qi Taigong, and was recognized by the Zhou Dynasty and other princes. This is the famous "Tian Dai Qi Jiang" in history.

Among the nearly 1.2 billion Han people in the country today, people with the surname Chen account for about 5.4%, that is, there are at least 54 people with the surname Chen for every 1,000 Chinese people, and the total population is about 54 million. After generations of migration and population multiplication, the Chen surname family originated from the "Old Chen Household" in Huaiyang, Henan. During the Spring and Autumn Period, Warring States Period, Qin and Han Dynasties, the Chen surname was mainly active in Henan, Anhui, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangsu, Shanxi, Shandong, etc. There are also footprints of the surname Chen on the ground. At the end of the Western Jin Dynasty, the Central Plains was in turmoil, and residents moved south one after another. The Chen surname mainly moved to Anhui, Jiangsu, Jiangxi, and Zhejiang. At the same time, the Chen surname and the Lin, Huang, Zheng and other clans took the lead in entering Fujian. By the Southern Dynasties, the surname Chen had become one of the four major surnames in Fujian. In the early Tang Dynasty, Chen Yuanguang and his son, who were from Gushi, Henan, entered Fujian via Jiangxi. Their descendants became the main faction with the Chen surname in Fujian, Guangdong, Taiwan and Nanyang Islands. At the end of the Tang Dynasty, Wang Shenzhi, a native of Gushi, established the Min Kingdom in Fujian, and a large number of people surnamed Chen from the Central Plains immigrated to Fujian again. From then on. The surname Chen has become the most common surname in the southeast region. By the Song Dynasty, due to the large-scale migration of people from the Central Plains to the south, China's population and political center moved from the north to the south for the first time. Since the Chen surname family had gradually moved away from the north as early as the Qin and Han Dynasties, several wars in the Central Plains had relatively little damage to the Chen surname. During the Song, Yuan and Ming dynasties, the surname Chen developed steadily in the south, eventually forming the typical southern surname today.

Guangdong is the largest province with the surname Chen today, home to 14.7% of the total population surnamed Chen, accounting for 10.5% of the province's population. The provinces with the highest proportion of provincial population are Fujian (14%) and Taiwan (12.2%). The whole country has formed a distribution pattern with the Yangtze River as the watershed, with fewer people in the north and more people in the south. South of the Yangtze River, two high concentration centers of Chen surnames were formed in Guangdong, Fujian and Zhejiang and Jiangsu, and then the gradient decreased westward, forming the distribution area of ??Chen surnames in the Yangtze River Basin. The northern region runs from Henan and Shandong through the Bohai Sea, connecting the Chen surname distribution belt in the three northeastern provinces. The areas with the highest density of people surnamed Chen per unit area are in southeastern Guangdong and northeastern Zhejiang. Among the nearly 1.2 billion Han people in the country today, people with the surname Chen account for about 5.4%, that is, there are at least 54 people with the surname Chen for every 1,000 Chinese, and the total population is about 54 million.