What did Sichuanese do when they immigrated to Ganzhou?

Suppose three strangers wait for the bus together and get together to chat. A said, "I'm from Jiangxi. Where are you from? " . Hearing this, B was happy and immediately replied, "You are from Jiangxi and I am from Hubei. My cousin is good. Where are you going? " When A heard the answer, she was refreshed and rushed to say, "Oh, Hubei people, I'll go …".

In this way, A in Jiangxi and B in Hubei chatted enthusiastically. And C, who is neither from Jiangxi nor Hubei, was left aside. C feels strange. We are all strangers. When we say who we are, they are so excited to talk about it that they are called "cousins" to climb up the relationship.

This is a common joke on the Internet. I believe many people will be as confused as C in this story. Why should this Hubei person be called the "old cousin" of Jiangxi people? What does cousin mean?

Speaking of this cousin, the author, as a Sichuanese, is still familiar with it.

I guess many people will have this experience: when I was a child, I went shopping with my family, on the street, but whenever someone who is a little familiar greets your mother, your mother will reply to her enthusiastically. At this time, you will know that you are going to listen to your mother's "long speech" with others.

At this time, when your mother heard someone say that this person or someone in this person's family had something to do with your family, she immediately changed her name to "cousin". Of course, chatting is more exciting.

From the above example, we can see that "cousin" is a title between people who are related by blood. So why do Hubei people who don't know each other call Jiangxi people "old cousins"? These two strangers who don't even know each other's names are not relatives. Why do they "acknowledge the relationship"?

The reason is actually very simple. Everything originated from a large-scale immigration activity at the end of Yuan Dynasty and the beginning of Ming Dynasty, which was called "Jiangxi Lake Filling" in history.

As the name implies, "Jiangxi fills Huguang" is to "fill" most people in Jiangxi into Huguang area. Then why did you move so many Jiangxi people to Huguang area?

As we know, China has been a big agricultural country since ancient times, and the land is for farmers to eat, and generally they will not leave their fields easily. Moreover, in order to develop the economy and stabilize the society, the rulers do not allow people to migrate, let alone large-scale cross-provincial mobility. Which emperor would do such a thing without special circumstances? It's nothing at all to find yourself unhappy.

But as we just said, it is not under any special circumstances, nor is it a peaceful and prosperous time in the late Yuan Dynasty and early Ming Dynasty.

At that time, due to the cruel exploitation of the ruling class in the Yuan Dynasty, the people had to bear heavier and heavier taxes. Coupled with the constant occurrence of natural disasters, it is even worse for farmers who are already hungry. At this time, peasant uprisings broke out one after another in various places.

People in Jiangxi province also suffered greatly. Due to the inability to pay taxes on time, and in order to avoid the war, a large number of farmers began to migrate to Huguang area where the situation was relatively good. At that time, the ruling class of the Yuan Dynasty had taken care of its own affairs, so naturally it had no time to manage this kind of migration.

In addition to people's spontaneous migration, there is also government forced migration.

After the establishment of the Ming Dynasty, the rulers ordered Jiangxi people to migrate to Huguang on a large scale in order to alleviate the depression caused by the war and promote economic development.

At this time, the population of Huguang area has decreased a lot. Most people followed Marshal Ming Yuzhen of the Red Scarf Army to Sichuan, and some people died in the war.

Although some people have moved out of Jiangxi, there are still many people left. You know, in the Song Dynasty, Ganzhou, Jiangxi Province was already one of the 36 famous cities. After several generations of development, the population has also increased to a considerable number. So Jiangxi is not only close, but also crowded. If you don't move from here, where will you move?

"History of Chinese Immigrants" Volume 5: The Ming Dynasty recorded that "Jiangxi immigrants accounted for about 74%".

It can be seen that most Hubei people migrated from Jiangxi. So now most people in Hubei are descendants of Jiangxi people. So it is not surprising that Hubei people call Jiangxi people "old cousins".

In fact, although there are few examples of large-scale immigration in the history of our country, there are still some. For example, we are familiar with the Anshi Rebellion and the Jingkang Rebellion. After these two incidents, a large number of northerners moved south. People who moved to the south brought technology and population to the originally barren Yangtze River basin, which promoted the economic development in the south.

Similarly, Jiangxi people who moved to Huguang area also took root there, which promoted the development of local agriculture and commodity economy and made their own contributions to the development of the Yangtze River basin.