Why did the first great migration in China's history take place in Qin and Han Dynasties?

The first large-scale population migration in the history of China took place in the Qin and Han Dynasties.

The Yellow River Basin has been the birthplace of the Chinese nation since ancient times, and it is also the center of ancient population distribution in China.

Until the Qin and Han dynasties, the population of this area accounted for about 80% of the total population of the country.

However, at the end of the Western Han Dynasty, due to decades of social unrest, "people eat people, the walls are empty, and the bones cover the wild", and the population of the Yellow River Basin has greatly decreased.

During the 90 years from the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty to the end of the Three Kingdoms, there were frequent wars in the Central Plains, and the people in this area fled to the relatively stable south, making "the Central Plains hukou, not one tenth." In the Yellow River Basin and its vicinity, "famous cities are empty and uninhabited, and those without cities and people cannot win." Results The proportion of population in the Yellow River basin decreased from 80% to 60%, and the population distribution in the whole country remained basically stable until the Anshi Rebellion in the middle of Tang Dynasty.

In fact, the immigration policy of the Qin Dynasty began in the Qin Xiaogong period.

Guanzhong area is vast and sparsely populated since ancient times, but there is a lot of land to be reclaimed.

During Shang Yang's political reform, in order to develop agriculture, Qin promoted preferential land policy and wantonly reclaimed land.

And attract the population of neighboring countries by reducing the tax system, which not only reduces the population of neighboring countries but also increases the population of our country.

After Qin Shihuang unified the six eastern countries, he continued to carry out large-scale population migration. First, he enriched Guanzhong and improved productivity. On the other hand, it is to resist the invasion of Xiongnu.

Xiongnu is a tenacious nation in northern China. Since ancient times, Huns have often invaded the Central Plains from the south, burning, looting and harassing the border.

The Qin dynasty was very uneasy. While moving a large number of people to the frontier, it also developed land, which could be used as a military force to resist the Huns in wartime.

At that time, in the twenty-sixth year of Qin Shihuang, the Qin Dynasty moved1.2000 wealthy businessmen to Xianyang, and settled the fields to guard the border. Counting a family of five, hundreds of thousands of people were also moved.

In the thirty-third year of Qin Shihuang, in order to expel the Huns, about thirty or forty counties were set up in the "New Qin". These places are only suitable for grazing, not for farming. Originally, the population was not very large, and many counties were set up at once, which required a large number of people to move here to live.

At the same time, Qin moved a large number of people to the southwest and southeast.

In the early Western Han Dynasty, in order to enrich Guanzhong and strengthen border defense, large-scale immigration began, which continued the immigration policy of the previous generation.

In 200 BC, Fengxian people who moved to Surabaya went to Guanzhong Yili to build Xinfeng County.

During the period of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, the population of 1.6 million also moved to Xianyang, Shaanxi Province for the purpose of establishing a mausoleum.

In 127 BC, Shuofang and Wuyuan counties were recovered from Henan, and 654.38+10,000 people moved here.

The largest population migration in the Western Han Dynasty occurred in 1 19 BC. There have been floods in Guanzhong for years, and 725,000 people have "migrated to the west of Guanzhong and lived in the dark new Qin in northern Shaanxi".

In addition, there are also small-scale artificial population migration in the southeast.

During the Eastern Han Dynasty, due to the war, people in the Central Plains began to migrate to the Yangtze River basin to escape the war and reach the Pearl River basin further.

Since then, after nearly a century and a half of development, the population of the southern region is mostly immigrants from the north, except for natural growth.