Why did Shanxi people choose to go west more than 300 years ago?

As we all know, there is a sad folk song called "Walking West", which I believe many people have heard, especially Shanxi people, because walking west is a folk song handed down from ancient times in Shanxi. From a cultural point of view, more than 300 years ago, our Chinese nation was a farming nation, and its biggest feature was that it was inconvenient for the ancients to travel, and Shanxi people came from Shanxi singing "Going West". From the mid-Ming Dynasty to the early Republic of China, millions of people left their homes and settled in Mongolia. In the history books, this period of history is called westward, and it is also called the three major population migration activities with the famous "eastward" and "lower Southeast Asia". Then, why was there such an activity in Shanxi at that time? What kind of secrets are hidden behind the large-scale westward journey?

Xikou is a gateway from Shuozhou, Shanxi Province to the Mongolian Plateau. Its official name is Shahukou. Why was it later called "going west"? Because the killing tiger mouth is in the west of the Great Wall and Zhangjiakou is in the east of the Great Wall, it is customary to call it the west mouth. Historically, Shanxi people's "westward journey" mostly started from the north-central part of Shanxi, forming two main routes, one to the west, entering the Mongolian grassland at Shahukou, and the other to the east, crossing Datong and entering Mongolia via Zhangjiakou. Everyone must be curious why Shanxi people go all the way to Mongolia.

In fact, the most fundamental reason lies in the barren fields and frequent natural disasters in the northern region at that time. In the more than 300 years of the Qing Dynasty, there were more than 100 disasters in Shanxi Province, which happened once every three years on average, and the longest drought lasted 1 1 year. In this case, people choose to go out, maybe they can find a way out. It will form a trend of "going west". As it happens, alatan Khan of Mongolia is a wise and enlightened ruler. In order to develop regional economy and improve people's life, he actively advocated improving relations with the Ming Dynasty and realizing currency exchange. 175 1 year, realizing the currency exchange between the Northern Yuan Dynasty and the Ming Dynasty. It is tantamount to opening up a life channel for people who go to the west. They went to Mongolia to engage in agriculture and animal husbandry production or handicraft labor such as blacksmiths, carpenters and woolen craftsmen, and settled down to form villages and towns.

As far as Mongolia is concerned, the arrival of a large number of mainland immigrants has brought more advanced farming techniques, promoted the development of local agriculture, changed the local single nomadic economy, and strengthened the mutual exchanges between Mongolian and Han nationalities. Errentai, a popular local opera, is the product of the exchange and integration of mainland culture and grassland culture.

With the development of society, the history of westward advancement is gone forever, but the cultural connotation of westward advancement has been passed down, that is, the national spirit of perseverance and hard struggle, which is the spiritual wealth that inspires future generations to strive hard.