Immigration activities at the west exit

In history, "westward", also known as "outward", refers to the immigration activities of people from Shanxi and Shaanxi to the Inner Mongolia grassland outside the Great Wall for reclamation and business. The exact location of the "West Exit" has always been controversial. At present, the mainstream view is that the earliest "Xikou" refers to Shahukou (now Youyu County, Shanxi Province), and later refers to Cheng Guihua (now Hohhot, Inner Mongolia). However, due to the huge and complex crowd, the exact meaning of "Xikou" is actually different for people in different regions. Generally speaking, "Xikou" actually refers to all the passes from Qin Jin to Inner Mongolia.

Historically, Shanxi and Shaanxi, located in the Loess Plateau, are one of the cradles of Chinese civilization and the earliest developed areas in China. Farming civilization has a history of thousands of years. During the Ming and Qing dynasties, due to the narrow land and dense population and frequent natural disasters, many lower-class people left their homes and moved around. From the geographical environment, Shanxi and northern Shaanxi are traditionally important dividing lines of agriculture and animal husbandry in China, with vast land outside the mouth and sparsely populated. The local people actively recruited mainlanders to cultivate seeds for various needs, while the Qing government gradually relaxed its policies to encourage land reclamation and develop agriculture for immigration and other considerations. So, people from Shanxi and Shaanxi called friends to introduce others and went to Guihua City Tumote, Chahar and Erdos to make a living. The resultant force of the above factors led to the growing trend of "westward advancement" from the early Qing Dynasty to the Republic of China.