Where do Shanghainese come from and why are most of them from Ningbo?

Shanghai used to be a small fishing village. After the Opium War, it was assigned to Britain by the corrupt Qing government, and a concession was established here. As a direct result, immigrants from China and other countries in the world began to flock to Shanghai, and it gradually became a foreign leased land. Many laws and regulations of the Qing government don't work here either, and many places are based on western standards. At that time, China had a small population, and most of Shanghai were immigrants.

The so-called Shanghainese were not born and registered in Shanghai. At best, it can only be counted as a Shanghai household registration. Only those who have lived in Shanghai for at least the fourth generation and above can be called Shanghainese. Even those from downtown Shanghai are not real Shanghainese. After all, most people don't understand Shanghai dialect.

As early as the Republic of China, Shanghai was already a prosperous international metropolis. Besides foreigners, there were many China people from all over the country. But during World War II, most foreigners left Shanghai and returned to their own countries. Especially during the Battle of Songhu, many China people living in Shanghai died in this war, and some survivors fled to other places. Even after the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, the remaining old immigrants were mainly from Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces.

After the founding of New China, it was different. More and more people began to flood into the metropolis of Shanghai, and even the native place and composition of Shanghainese began to be more diversified. It is said that one third of the people in Shanghai were from Ningbo at that time. Even now, most Shanghai natives mainly live in the suburbs of Shanghai, and they never say that they are from Shanghai. By Shanghainese, you actually mean the families who lived in Shanghai before the founding of New China. Mainly distributed in Ningbo, Shaoxing, Huzhou, Jiaxing, Suzhou, Wuxi and Changzhou. Among them, Jiangsu people and Ningbo people accounted for a large part, which was also an important reason why many Shanghainese came from Ningbo at that time.

It is said that there were certain levels of immigrants in Shanghai during the Republic of China. At that time, the people with the highest status in Shanghai were all Shanghainese from Ningbo, who were mainly engaged in the financial industry and held the economic lifeline of Shanghai, so they had a great voice in Shanghai. So at that time, many sons of Ningbo were doing business in Shanghai, and there were naturally more and more Ningbo people there. Secondly, Sue often goes to Shanghai. Many of them are engaged in manufacturing. Although not as rich as Ningbo people, their strength should not be underestimated by then. At that time, the people at the bottom were all from Jiangsu except Su Xichang. Most of them are mainly manual labor, and they have long been discriminated and suppressed by Ningbo people and Sunan people. They make a living by working under them.