Why Guangdong, Guangxi, Sichuan and Sichuan?

As a folk song, Huguang Fill Sichuan has been circulated among the people and stubbornly engraved in the life code of Sichuanese. Just five words is a road that evokes the blood relationship between future generations and ancestors. Through this road, future generations can talk to their ancestors, and no matter where they wander, they can put their footprints at the origin of their ancestors.

Today's Sichuan people often say that the ancestor "Huguang fills Sichuan" actually refers to the second "Huguang fills Sichuan" in Sichuan history in the early Qing Dynasty. In fact, for Sichuanese, the first "Huguang filling Sichuan" in the early Ming Dynasty was equally important. However, today's Sichuanese often confuse and overlap the two "Huguang filling Sichuan". In particular, it should be pointed out that the first condition of large-scale immigration is that the place where the immigrants live has a wide enough geographical space to accommodate a large number of people, and the background of the two "Huguang filling Sichuan" is that Sichuan was ruined, the population withered and the land was abandoned because of the change of dynasties and constant wars. Therefore, Sichuan had the conditions to accept large-scale immigrants during the Yuan and Ming Dynasties. These two times of "Huguang filling Sichuan" have therefore become "great changes" in Sichuan's population history, but for this reason, Sichuanese have paid a painful price.

First of all, we need to explain the jurisdiction of Huguang. "Huguang" is the name of provincial administrative division, which originated in Yuan Dynasty and was fixed in Ming Dynasty. As the "Zhongshu Province" in Yuan Dynasty, the scope of "Huguang" includes Wuhan area, Hubei Province, Hunan Province, most of Guizhou Province, the whole Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, the southwest of Guangdong Province and Hainan Province, namely, the two lakes, Guangdong, Guangxi and Hainan. From the Ming Dynasty to the first year of Yongzheng (A.D. 1723), "Huguang" covered Hubei and Hunan provinces. From the first year of Yongzheng, Huguang Province was divided into Hubei Province and Hunan Province. When we say Huguang now, we mean Hunan and Hubei provinces, and "Guangdong and Guangxi" means Guangdong and Guangxi. According to research, in fact, the two immigrants of "Huguang filling Sichuan" did not come from Huguang, but also from Guangdong, Guangxi, Shanxi and Shaanxi.

Wei Yuan (A.D. 1794 ~ 1857), a famous scholar of Daoguang in Qing Dynasty, first recorded "Huguang fills Sichuan" in Chinese characters. Wei Yuan clearly recorded in the article "Huguang Water Conservancy" that this statement originated from Zhang's killing Sichuan, indicating that "Huguang filling Sichuan" did not become a common statement until the early Qing Dynasty, and the first "Huguang filling Sichuan" should only be an academic name for Sichuan immigrants from Hongwu to Yongle in the early Ming Dynasty: "In the next season, Zhang thieves slaughtered the people in Sichuan, and. After the matter was settled, Jiangxi people went to Chu, and Chu people went to Shu. So there is a rumor that' Jiangxi fills Huguang and Huguang fills Sichuan'.

In recent years, many scholars have done some valuable research on the second book "Huguang Filling Sichuan", but the first book "Huguang Filling Sichuan" is still a weak field of research. When we interpret the context of Sichuanese, it is necessary to have a preliminary understanding of Huguang Filling Sichuan in the early Ming Dynasty.

At the end of the Song Dynasty and the beginning of the Yuan Dynasty, Sichuan had the strongest resistance to the Mongolian army, so according to the habit of the Mongolian army, Sichuan also suffered the most violent revenge and slaughter, and its population dropped from100000 to nearly 800000! If we consider that these 800,000 people also include the Yuan Army, then the practical significance of Sichuan to the Song Dynasty only left a name.

Sichuan is so miserable that you can imagine what the rest of the Central Plains looks like under the iron hoof of the Mongolian army. Thus, in the early years of the Ming Dynasty, a family doctor named Liu Jiugao said to Zhu Yuanzhang: "The people in ancient narrow villages would be unprofitable and unemployed if they listened to the words of wide villages." Zhu Yuanzhang, the emperor of Ming Dynasty, adopted his suggestion and ordered the reclamation. At this point, the nationwide large-scale relocation began.

In this compulsory policy transfer, we can't help but mention one word: jieshou. Now the source of this word is the ethnic immigrants in Hongwu period in the early Ming Dynasty. There is a folk story that during the Hongwu period in the early Ming Dynasty, the court forced immigrants, and officers and men tied them to the road to prevent them from escaping. Binding two arms is called big binding, and binding one arm is called small binding. Not only that, I'm afraid they will run away tied up, but also tie the tied people together with ropes before being escorted to the road. Many people are connected and stop when they want to move. If a person wants to move, it involves a lot, and no one can escape. For the escorted officers and men, it is natural to save trouble, but for the bound immigrants, it is hard. The most troublesome thing is defecation. In order to express the meaning clearly, it is a long story. For example, if a person wants to defecate or urinate, he must first report and say, "Please stop, please untie my hand, I want to urinate." The more people there are, the more times the rope is untied on the road. Officers and men also feel trouble, but this method can't be changed. Later, it was simplified to a few words: I want to let go. The speaker is simple, easy to understand, and the listener can understand. Until later settled down, this expression became an idiom, that is, it became synonymous with defecation. Until today, Sichuan, Hebei, Henan, Shandong and many other places say that going to the toilet still follows this statement. As for when there is a distinction between resolving big hands (defecation) and resolving small hands (urination), it is not clear. However, unlike some other provinces, many Sichuanese still think so. Because the immigrants' arms have been tied and numb for a long time, most of them have developed the habit of walking with their hands behind their backs, so today's older generation in Sichuan still likes to walk slowly with their hands behind their backs.