Modern immigration history of Hong Tong Sophora japonica

From the Jiajing period of the Ming Dynasty, the "big pagoda tree" began to appear in the legends about immigrants, became the collective memory of the ancestors of the northern people, and gradually condensed into a spiritual image through genealogy and inscriptions in the early Qing Dynasty. By the end of the Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the Republic of China, as the most extensive and influential immigrant birthplace in China's immigrant history, "Sophora japonica" was no longer a symbol of Shanxi's immigrant homeland, but became an integral part of modern nationalist discourse.

The name of "Huaiyin" in Jinan comes from the great immigrants in Hongwu period. Huaiyin people have deep feelings for the locust tree in Hongdong, Shanxi Province, which contains a heavy immigrant culture.

"Ask me where my ancestors are? Shanxi Hongtong Sophora japonica "

"Ask me where my ancestors are? Sophora japonica in Hongdong, Shanxi. What's your ancestral home? The old nest under the big locust tree. " For hundreds of years, this folk song has been handed down from generation to generation in northern China, which is well known to women and children. For centuries, the relocation of ancient Sophora japonica in Hongtong County has been called "home", "ancestor" and "root" by many Chinese descendants at home and abroad, and it has become the hometown in everyone's heart.

At the end of the Yuan Dynasty, politics was dark, the government imposed exorbitant taxes, and the people were miserable. The main battlefield of the peasant war at the end of the Yuan Dynasty, which lasted for 17 years, was in the lower reaches of the Yellow River and the Huanghuai Plain, which made the Shandong area "white bones exposed in the wild, and there was no cock crow for thousands of miles." In Leling County, there are only over 400 households left. Wei county's surname is Li and Jin ... even the emperor Zhu Yuanzhang had to admit: "In the Central Plains, the Yuan Dynasty was the most war-torn and had few residents."

Unlike the Yuan government, which ruled the country by force, Zhu Yuanzhang was a thoughtful politician who knew how to develop the country's economy. At that time, agriculture accounted for 80% to 90% of the national economy, and the recovery of agriculture could not be separated from labor. The way to quickly restore the labor force is immigration. Immigrants swept the country in the early Ming Dynasty, and the most widely known was the migration of Sophora japonica in Hongdong, Shanxi.

It can be said that Shanxi was the best choice for immigrants at that time. According to historical records, when the Ming Dynasty was founded, the population of Shandong and Henan was less than 2 million, while the population of Shanxi actually reached more than 4 million. This is due to the special geographical location of Shanxi, with Luliang Mountain in the west and Taihang Mountain in the east. Under the protection of natural barriers, it is less affected by war. However, the northern part of Shanxi and Jinzhong are mountainous areas, and only the southern part of Shanxi can be cultivated, with a large population and little land, and people's lives are very bitter. As a result, Zhu Yuanzhang decided to move "the people in narrow townships to wide townships", and hundreds of thousands of Shanxi farmers had to leave their homes and move to Henan, Hebei, Shandong and other places. A migration tide that lasted for half a century began.

The Immigration Bureau is located in Guangji Temple in the north of Hongdong, Shanxi. Not far from Guangji Temple, there is a big pagoda tree with a diameter of more than 3 meters, which is regarded as a sacred tree by the people and is a landmark building of Hongdong. You put up posters, put up notices, concentrate the immigrants under the big pagoda tree to register, and send them "Chuandu" and "photos" to urge them to go on their way.

At that time, immigrants were all on foot. It takes seven days to walk quickly from Taiyuan to Hongdong, and eight days to walk slowly. It is impossible to concentrate all the immigrants from all over Shanxi in Hongdong. But the locust tree is a symbol of immigration. When it comes to immigration, it is naturally associated with it.

The migration of Sophora japonica started in the early Ming Dynasty and lasted for more than 100 years. During the Hongwu period alone, hundreds of thousands of people moved out of Hongdong area. Some are directly distributed in Hebei, Shandong, Henan, Anhui and other provinces, and some are indirectly distributed in Sichuan, Yunnan, Guizhou, Northeast China, Inner Mongolia and other places.

In the process of land reclamation by immigrants, the state gives yellow cattle, seeds and land tax exemption for three years. Through the hard work of immigrants, the cultivated land area in the original desolate area has been greatly increased, agricultural production has been restored and developed, and at the same time, it has made contributions to consolidating border defense and promoting national integration and cultural exchanges.

Before leaving, most of the immigrants in these areas went through the migration procedures under the big locust tree in Hongdong, received the migration certificate issued by the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, bid farewell to the past, and then went to a different place.

Because these immigrants went through the immigration formalities under the locust tree in Hongdong, they regarded this place as their hometown. Up to now, the proverb "Ask where my ancestors went, Sophora japonica in Hongdong, Shanxi" is still circulating in northern China.

The memory of immigrants: a hundred-year footprint against the wind

It is not easy for ordinary people to leave home thousands of miles away and start their lives again in a strange place. So, around this migration, the migrants and their descendants made up all kinds of exciting and depressing stories. The most common legend is that the Great Migration was successful because the rulers of Zhu Ming set up a big scam.

At the beginning of the migration, the Ming government issued a notice in Sanjin: "Those who don't want to migrate, gather under the big locust tree in Hongdong and arrive within three days. I hope that the floating population can wait at home. " The news spread like wildfire, married and having children, native people from northern Shanxi, Jinzhong and southern Shanxi came with their children, surrounded by women. Within three days, 100,000 people gathered under the old pagoda tree.

At this time, the officers and men of the brigade swarmed in and wrapped the unarmed people. An official announced loudly: "Emperor Daming ordered that anyone who came under the big pagoda tree should be cleared away!" After that, the officers and men ruthlessly handcuffed the young and middle-aged people, so they forcibly registered and distributed photos. There is a family tied by a rope, like a string of grasshoppers. Under the sword, hundreds of people embarked on a journey of migration with hatred. ...

Today, in Hebei, Shandong and Henan, the descendants of Hongtong pagoda tree immigrants have summed it up as: "There are two little fingers and toenails when walking."

Walking with your hands behind your back is because it has become a habit to tie your hands behind your back for many years. There are two little toenails, and some say that the officers and men are afraid of escaping on the way to immigration, so they cut a knife on each little toenail and marked it; Some people say that it is a sign that immigrants bite the little toenails of newborns; Others said that the immigrants stumbled all the way over the mountains, and their little toenails were bruised and split in two. Because his hands were tied behind his back, the immigrants needed to pee, so they shouted to the escorted soldiers, "untie your hands, I have to pee." After a long time, I'm too lazy to waste my breath. I just shouted, "Get it out of here." Since then, there has been another synonym for defecation.

The warp and weft in history are usually intertwined with mysterious silk threads. However, we can still sift out the tragic truth of farmers' migration in the early Ming Dynasty by clearing the fog of these folklore.

The great migration touched the most sensitive nerves of the people in Sanjin, and the rulers of the Ming Dynasty had to draw up immigration regulations and move according to the proportion of "one person for a family of four, two for a family of six and three for a family of eight". Mr Wu Han wrote in Zhu Yuanzhang's Biography: "When the relocation order was first issued, people's resentment was boiling, but the speed was shocking. If you are afraid, you will be warned, and if you are threatened, you will be punished. " This shows that the immigration at that time was completely carried out under the coercion of power politics.

The Great Migration is undoubtedly the masterpiece of Qiang Bing, a rich country in Zhu Ming Dynasty, but it is a great sorrow for every family. When they looked back step by step, drifted around step by step, and drifted away from the well in the countryside, what they finally saw in tears was the tall old locust tree, which was a cluster of old stork nests among the branches of the old locust tree. ...

After several generations and more than ten generations, most descendants of people who moved from Gu Huai didn't know where they were in He Cun before they moved, but they all knew that "Sophora japonica is their hometown", which has never been forgotten. Immigrants are reluctant to leave the pagoda tree. After arriving at the new settlement, most of them planted Sophora japonica trees to express their nostalgia for their hometown.

Shandong story of locust tree immigrants

Shandong province, located in the lower reaches of the Yellow River, was one of the key areas for immigrants in the early Ming Dynasty. * * Starting from the first volume of Shandong Place Names, search 9 1 counties and cities to find the existence of Hong Tong Sophora Immigrant Village.

After the immigrants of Sophora japonica arrive at their destination, their families are often separated. In order to recognize each other in the future, they often break one object and take each as a token. The most famous is the legend of "beating a pot of cattle". According to the Records of Qingzhou Place Names, Niujiazhuang, an ordinary township in Qingzhou City, was built by cattle, and Hong Wuchu moved to Zaoqiang, Hebei Province. The Niu brothers smashed an iron pot, each holding a piece as proof of mutual recognition in the future, commonly known as "iron pot cow".

After the immigrants moved to Shandong, they mainly reclaimed land and cultivated land. Therefore, most of the villages built by immigrants are named after ×× Tun, especially "surname+Tun", and the villages named after "surname+Guantun" in western Shandong are government-organized immigration official Tun.

In the early Ming Dynasty, there was a Yuan named Cheng Fu. He fought side by side with Zhu Yuanzhang, fought in the south and fought in the north, and repeatedly made meritorious military service. This official worships General Wei Zhen. After the reunification of the Ming Dynasty, the first task was to emigrate and reclaim land. Yuan automatically signed up, and his family moved from Huanggang, Cao County, Shandong Province. At that time, Zhu Yuanzhang appreciated it very much, gave him a "jade tablet with an inscription by Yuan" and awarded him a third-class merit. Yuan Gong Zheng settled in Tu Gang, north of Wang Guan Temple, about 20 kilometers north of Cao Zhou, and named it "Yuanjiagudui". The inscription reads: "Hongdong branches from the old family, and Cao Zhou lives in the old family style."

The influx of immigrants will inevitably lead to conflicts with aborigines, especially for land. However, it is undeniable that immigrants have played an important role in promoting the development of agriculture in Shandong. Immigrants of Sophora japonica planted dignified sweat firmly in the strange Yuan Ye of Qilu with the heroic roaming time and space of the old Sophora japonica and the indomitable tenacity of rooting in the soil, and soon developed a vibrant living space.

"History of Ming Dynasty" once described the development of production after immigration: "Shi Yu is rich and enviable, and the millet has been exported to the capital for millions, and the government treasury is so rich that it is inedible." In September of the 28th year of Hongwu, Yu Xin, head of the household department, said: "There are 757,000 pieces of stones in Chu Guang and Guangdou Warehouse in Jinan, Shandong Province ... The two warehouses have a lot of savings, which are all red and rotten at the age of ... It is appropriate to fold cotton cloth for charity this autumn."

With the recovery of agriculture, the villages built by immigrants have gradually become the local economic center. At that time, Dongchang and Yanzhou, where Sophora Immigrants were distributed, were located on the Grand Canal, the main artery of Beijing-Hangzhou traffic, which also provided favorable conditions for the development of Shanxi merchants, and the business in western Shandong developed rapidly. As the saying goes, "Suzhou and Hangzhou are in the south and Linzhang is in the north." "Pro" refers to Linqing, the largest commercial city in northern China at that time, and "Zhang" refers to Zhangqiu Town, a commercial town in Yanggu.

In the middle and late Qing Dynasty, the traditional society began to disintegrate under the heavy impact, but the wind of revising music reached its peak. The word-of-mouth "big locust tree" began to enter countless genealogies.