What does Huaxia mean?

China and Han nationality were called "Hua" and "Xia" respectively in ancient times. "Hua" means "Rong" and "Xia" means "people from China", that is, people from the Central Plains. After the Spring and Autumn Period, it was also called Zhu Xia. The ancients regarded China as symmetrical with barbarians or descendants, and distinguished it by culture and race. In ancient times, there were many clans and tribes in China. Four or five thousand years ago, the Yellow Emperor in the northwest defeated Jiuli and Yan Di and entered the Central Plains. The Yellow Emperor and his descendants Yao, Shun and Yu unified and integrated many clans and tribes, such as Miao, Li, Yi and Man, and formed an alliance with them, which propagated on both sides of the middle reaches of the Yellow River. 2 100 BC? 770 years ago, Xia, Shang and Zhou tribes in the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River lived together for a long time, and gradually formed China. There are different opinions about when the Huaxia nationality was formed, from the primitive society, the middle Shang Dynasty, the middle Western Zhou Dynasty, the early Eastern Zhou Dynasty, the Spring and Autumn Period to the middle and late Warring States Period, with an interval of one or two thousand years. During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, the vassal states merged with each other constantly, and the economic and cultural exchanges between regions were frequent, which strengthened the close ties between China and other ethnic groups. Some of the nationalities such as Di, Qiang, Ba, Shu, Yunnan, Bo, Pu, Miao and Yue merged into China, while others gradually developed into new nationalities through mutual assimilation. In 22 1 year BC, the Qin dynasty established a unified multi-ethnic country with Huaxia as the main body. In the Han Dynasty, the Huaxia nationality absorbed other ethnic elements continuously, and its population doubled, gradually replacing the old names of Zhu Xia and Huaxia with the Han nationality.

The word "Huaxia" first appeared in Shangshu Zhou Shu Wucheng in the Zhou Dynasty, and "the arrogance of Huaxia is indispensable".

"Zuo Zhuan Ding Gong Ten Years" says: "China is called Xia because of its great gifts, and Hua because of its splendid clothes".

The scripture says, "The coronation ceremony is suitable for China, and the big countries call it summer".

"Justice in Shangshu" notes: "zhanghua was crowned as China, and a great country called Xia".

It can be seen that the ancients regarded the beauty of Hanfu as China; With broad borders, prosperous culture, prosperous civilization and morality, this is summer. In terms of meaning, the word "Hua" has a beautiful meaning, and the word "Xia" has a grand meaning. Together, it is really a beautiful word.

"Huaxia" refers to the vassal nation in the Central Plains, and is also the title of Han ancestors before the Han Dynasty. It can also refer to the Han nationality, such as Ye Sheng's Diary of Water Cave, Happiness, Faith and Courage in the Ming Dynasty: "Buddha is a foreigner and suitable for immortals. If there is public participation and the hanging ceremony is unknown, it is different from China. " Yu Dafu's poem entitled "Inscribed Wall of Minshan Qi Jiguang Temple" said: "For three hundred years, I have never rested on my Chinese dignity.

"Huaxia" also refers to the Central Plains of China where Chinese people live, and then it is called the ancient name of China in terms of all the territory of China. Shangshu Zhou Shu Wucheng: "Huaxia is arrogant and useless." Biography of the Three Kingdoms, Shu Zhi and Guan Yu: "Yu Wei shocked China, and Cao Gong planned to move the capital to avoid its sharpness."

The ancestors of the Chinese nation are Huangdi and Yan Di who live in the middle and upper reaches of the Yellow River. Later, the alliance of the two tribes entered the Central Plains after defeating Chiyou. The Chinese established their rule in the Central Plains.

Then came the Xia Dynasty, the first dynasty in China's history. Referred to as "summer".

China's ancestors.

China's ancestor was the Yellow Emperor. China History, the Encyclopedia of China, explains the Yellow Emperor as follows: "The earliest ancestor of China in ancient historical legends was recognized as the ancestor of the whole family after the formation of the Chinese nation." With regard to the origin of the word Huaxia, some archaeologists believe that "flower" is a kind of flower, which was originally a "symbol" of roses in Yangshao culture in the Central Plains of China, and later formed a * * * identity with the tribes marked by dragon totem at the foot of Yanshan Mountain, so there was a saying that "Huashan Rose Yanshan Dragon" evolved into "Xia, Shang, Zhou,". "Xia" is known as the ancestor of Xia Dynasty in history. The encyclopedia says that "a descendant of Huangdi family entered the southern part of Shanxi today and created Xia culture", which is called Xia family and "established the first dynasty of Xia Dynasty in China".

At the end of Shang Dynasty, Zhou people joined hands with Xia people in exile, Jiang family in the system (thought as representative) and Chu people who moved south. Then it overthrew the rule of Shang Dynasty and established the Zhou Dynasty. Zhou people called themselves "Huaxia" and later called their vassal states "Zhu Xia" or "Zhu Hua".

From about the Spring and Autumn Period, China ancient books began to use "Hua" and "Xia" together, which was called "Huaxia" clan. In the twenty-sixth year of Xianggong in Zuo Zhuan, there is a saying that Chu lost China, which is the earliest record of the word "Hua".

After the feudal lords fought for hegemony in the Spring and Autumn Period, the powerful countries annexed the weak countries in the Warring States Period, and even Qin Shihuang unified the Central Plains, the Chinese nation was finally completely unified for the first time. After the Han Dynasty became powerful, Huaxia changed its name to Han, and Huaxia became Han.

The Formation History of Huaxia (Han) Ethnic Group

From about 5000 BC, the Huaxia nationality, the main body of the Han nationality, originated in the Yellow River valley and began to develop gradually. It entered the Neolithic Age and went through the stages of matriarchal clan commune and paternal clan commune. In 2700 BC, there was a tribe named Ji in central Shaanxi, whose leader was Huangdi, and there was a tribe named Jiang in the south, whose leader was. Friction often occurs between the two sides. The battle of Han Quan finally broke out between the two tribes, and the Yellow Emperor defeated Yan Di. After that, the two tribes formed a tribal alliance and captured the surrounding tribes, and the predecessor of Huaxia State came into being.

According to the legend recorded in the pre-Qin literature, the ancestors of the Han nationality lived in the Xia, Shang and Zhou Dynasties. The ancestors of the Han nationality generally lived in the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River, starting from Longshan in the west and Taishan in the east. Yangshao culture and Longshan culture are two Neolithic cultures mainly distributed in this area, which are generally considered as the cultural remains of Han ancestors.

Ancient legends also describe that Han ancestors experienced a long era of primitive commune system. Before the Yellow Emperor, there was a matriarchal clan tribe that "Anemarrhena denied his father" (see matriarchal clan system); The legend about the Yellow Emperor marks the change from matriarchal clan tribe to paternal clan tribe (see paternal clan system) and enters the stage of tribal alliance. Legend has it that Yao, Shun and Yu, who successively served as leaders of the big tribal alliance in the form of abdication after the Yellow Emperor, are regarded as descendants of the Yellow Emperor.

In 2 1 century BC, the primitive commune system in the Central Plains came to the end of history, and a class society appeared on the land in the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River. After 2 1 century BC, Xia, Shang and Western Zhou Dynasties appeared one after another. First of all, between the Yellow River and its tributaries Weihe, Fenhe, yi river and Luohe, and between Ruhe and He Ying, tributaries of the upper reaches of Huaihe River; Then it developed to the vast areas of Huaihe River, Surabaya, Yangtze River and Hanshui River. There were clan names in the Western Zhou Dynasty, which were called Huaxia, Xia or Huaxia, to distinguish them from barbarians, Yi, Rong and Di. But at this time, the distinction between China and foreigners is not very strict.

During the Spring and Autumn Period, people in China had a strong sense of nobility and inferiority. At that time, the standards, race and culture that distinguished China from barbarians were valued, and culture was the primary factor. Due to etiquette, customs, clothing and other factors, China people and foreigners can often switch places with each other. For example, Qi is regarded as Dongyi because they are mixed with Dongyi; The Duke of Wu comes from Zhou, and he is regarded as a barbarian because of the customs of the Yue people. In the early years of the Western Zhou Dynasty, the ancestors of the Chu royal family were sealed in Man Jing. In the early Spring and Autumn Period, the king of Chu claimed to be the first king, and the princes called him Man Jing. Later, when the king of Chu competed for hegemony in the Central Plains, he claimed to maintain the Chinese etiquette system and was honored as China. Qin's ancestral home was in Dongyi, but he rose in the upper reaches of Weihe River, where Rongdi lived together, and his customs were mostly the same as Rongdi's. Later, he settled in the middle and lower reaches of Weihe River, engaged in farming and became a doctor of Zhou Dynasty. After Zhou Pingwang moved eastward, he became a vassal and established his own country in Haojing area in the Western Zhou Dynasty. In the Spring and Autumn Period, it was generally considered as Xirong. In the Warring States period, Qin and Chu were not only called Xia with Qi, Yan, Han, Zhao and Wei, but also the two most powerful governors in China. The seven heroes of the Warring States joined forces, Lian Heng, merged and fought, but the ethnic groups were the same, forming the trend of summer reunification; The Rong, Di, Yi and Man who entered the Central Plains gradually merged with the Huaxia nationality, so the Huaxia nationality became a stable nationality, and its distribution area has reached the middle and lower reaches of Liaohe River in Northeast China, Taohe River Basin in Northwest China, Bashu in Southwest China, Central Guizhou, Southeast Hunan and wuyue.

Qin Shihuang unified China and established the Qin Dynasty, followed by the Han Dynasty, which ruled China for more than 400 years. During this period, the territory of China expanded unprecedentedly. At this time, the distribution of Han population is still concentrated in the Yellow River and Huaihe River basins. Since the end of the Western Jin Dynasty, the Han population has gradually migrated to the Yangtze River, the Pearl River and the southeast of China on a large scale. From the Western Jin Dynasty to the Sui Dynasty, the Han population entered Central Asia and Yunnan. By the Ming and Qing dynasties, the population of Han people in the south had surpassed that in the north, and the Manchu people banned Han people from going out of the northeast. In the late Qing Dynasty, in order to enrich the frontier, Han people were allowed to enter the northeast of China. During Zhang's rule in Northeast China, a large number of Shandong Han people were introduced, which was called "crossing the East". From the Ming Dynasty, the Han nationality began to immigrate to Southeast Asia sporadically, and from the19th century, the Han nationality immigrated to Europe, North America and other places.