Hakka immigration history

Hakka is a branch of Han nationality. As for the Hakkas, the authoritative Ci Hai wrote in the entry of Hakkas. According to legend, during the Yongjia period of the Western Jin Dynasty (in the early 4th century), some Han people in the Yellow River valley moved south to cross the river because of the war. By the end of the Tang Dynasty and the Southern Song Dynasty, a large number of them had crossed the south of the Yangtze River to reach Jiangxi, Fujian, eastern Guangdong and northern Guangdong, and were called Hakkas, which was different from the original local residents and later came from the local Han people. This is how the American International Encyclopedia describes Hakka. Hakka is one of the best ethnic groups in the Chinese nation.

How did the Hakka dialect come from? Recent studies show that the ancestors of Hakkas can be traced back to the Qin Dynasty more than 200 BC, and there have been five great migrations of Hakkas in history.

The first great migration

In 22 1 year BC, Qin Shihuang unified the six countries. In the 28th year of Qin Dynasty, Qin Shihuang sent Tu Sui, leading 500,000 troops to March into Lingnan in five ways. Five years later, the vast area of Lingnan was unified and Nanhai County was established. Therefore, Longchuan Ancient City became one of the three ancient counties in Lingnan, and Zhao Tuo became the first county magistrate.

During his six years as a county magistrate, Zhao Tuo spread the advanced ideas of the Central Plains, agriculture and handicraft technology to Longchuan, adopted the administrative concept of "gathering hundreds of troops", and made his soldiers live in harmony with the aborigines, and wrote that the Emperor of Qin sent 30,000 women from the Central Plains to "mend soldiers' clothes" and 15,000 women from the Central Plains. These experimental county-building strategies laid the foundation for Zhao Tuo to establish South Vietnam in the future. Therefore, Gulongchuan became the rise and fall place of Zhao Tuo and one of the birthplaces of Lingnan culture.

At the end of the Qin Dynasty, Ren Xiao, the prefect of Nanhai County, was critically ill. He summoned Zhao Tuo, then the magistrate of Longchuan County, and said that Panyu could "risk mountains and block the South China Sea to build a country", and asked Zhao Tuo to act as the prefect of Nanhai County on the pretext of Qin Ting's order. In the third year of Emperor Gaozu, Zhao Tuo became the king of South Vietnam. Since then, many of these soldiers who stayed in Lingnan have become the earliest Hakka ancestors.

This is the earliest record of Hakka ancestors in Lingnan, and it is also the largest in the history of early population transfer in China. Therefore, Heyuan, which belonged to Gulongchuan in those days, was called "Hakka Ancient Town".

The second great migration

Since the Eastern Jin Dynasty, influenced by the Five Dynasties Rebellion and the southward crossing of scholars, some Han people in the Central Plains moved southward, staying in southern Hubei, Henan, Anhui and Jiangxi along the Yangtze River and upstream and downstream of the Ganjiang River. Influenced by the Huang Chao incident, the descendants of Han nationality immigrants from the Central Plains moved south again and settled in southwest Fujian and northeast Guangdong.

The third great migration

At the end of the Northern Song Dynasty, under the influence of Jin people going south, Song people crossing south and Yuan people coming to power, some Hakka ancestors moved from Gannan to western Fujian and then to northeastern Guangdong.

The fourth great migration

Beginning in A.D. 1645, influenced by Manchu people's southward entry into the Central Plains, some Hakkas moved from Hakka base camp to the central coast of Guangdong, and fled to Sichuan, Guangxi, Hunan, Guizhou, Jiangxi, Zhejiang, Taiwan Province and other provinces.

The fifth great migration

The fifth and last great migration was after AD 1867. Affected by the Guangdong West Road incident and the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom incident, some Hakkas migrated to southwest Guangdong, Hainan Island and overseas.

The formation of Hakka clan is a relatively long historical process, which began in the early Qin Dynasty when the emperor sent troops to the south to unify China, and went through the Western Jin Dynasty, the Six Dynasties, the Sui Dynasty, the Tang Dynasty, the Five Dynasties and the Ten Kingdoms, and finally ended in the late Northern Song Dynasty, the middle Southern Song Dynasty and the end of Yan Hongliang's invasion. Generally speaking, the formation of Hakka clans can be briefly summarized as follows: firstly, it moved south to Longchuan, mainly bred in southern Jiangxi, developed in western Fujian and matured in eastern Guangdong.

Gannan is considered as the cradle of Hakka. In the southeast of Jiangxi Province and the northeast of Ganzhou, there is a small county called Shicheng. Shicheng is located at the west foot of the middle section of Wuyishan at the junction of Fujian and Jiangxi, and is adjacent to Changting and Ninghua counties in Fujian Province in the east. Shicheng has been the main road leading to northwest Fujian and east Guangdong since ancient times, and is known as the land of the throat.

In order to avoid chaos, the Han people in the Central Plains have traveled thousands of miles to find a better place to live. When they meet the right place, they will stay; when they meet the wrong place, they will move on. In Shicheng, Fujian is further ahead, so we must stop for a while before making the final choice. Therefore, Shicheng has naturally become a natural transit point for immigrants. After crossing Poyang Lake, the Han people in the Central Plains moved south to Shicheng against the Ganjiang River, because Shicheng is the source of Ganjiang River. At the same time, some Han Chinese in the Central Plains came to Fuzhou through Fuhe and Xinjiang, and then crossed Wuyishan to Shicheng. Due to its location, Shicheng became one of the birthplaces of the early Hakkas and one of the biggest transit points for the Han people in the Central Plains to move southward. Shicheng has played a unique historical role in the formation of the whole Hakka clan system and occupies an important position in the development history of Hakka clan system.

Because of the small area, many people moved into Shicheng during the turmoil, and when the society was relatively peaceful and safe, many people moved out to find new development space and living conditions. So many people who moved to Shicheng moved to Shibi Village, Fujian next door.

The stone wall in Ninghua is as important as Shicheng in Gannan in geographical position, and it is in the middle of the completion process of Hakka clan, which plays an important role in connecting the past with the future. Ninghua is only 50 kilometers away from Shicheng County, Jiangxi Province, and there are four important passages between the two places. Among them, Lingzhan Pass is the lowest pass at the junction of northwest Fujian and southeast Jiangxi, less than 10 km away from Shibi, and it has been one of the important passages of the two provinces since ancient times.

Ninghua is also the source of the Three Rivers, which is one of the sources of Minjiang River, the largest river in Fujian, the source of Tingjiang River leading to Hanjiang River in Guangdong, and the source of Ganjiang River leading to Gongshui in Jiangxi. According to the mainstream of Xujiang in Jiangxi Province, it is not far away. So there are four rivers in Ninghua. It is worth mentioning that before Jingkang, Ninghua was a relatively safe and convenient passage for refugees, which made Central Plains immigrants willing to take refuge and breathe here. The special geographical traffic location and living environment of Ninghua Shibi determine its important position in the formation and development of Hakkas.

Judging from the history of ethnic migration, the genealogies that can be confirmed as Hakkas at present all mention that their ancestors once lived in Ninghua and its stone walls. Nowadays, Hakkas from all over the world often regard the generation who entered Fujian, especially Ninghua, as their ancestors. "There is a golden hall on the stone wall of Hekou House in Pixian County." This ballad vividly shows the special position of the stone wall in the eyes of Hakkas. In their own consciousness, Hakka clans also consider themselves as "Hakkas" living behind the stone wall in Ninghua.

Judging from the geographical distribution of Hakkas today, they are most concentrated in northeast Guangdong, southeast Jiangxi and southwest Fujian, which is consistent with the fact that Central Plains immigrants passed through Ninghua and Shibi in history. There are big locust trees in the north and Shibi Village in the south. Shek Pik is the ancestral home and home of the Hakkas.

From the stone wall of Ninghua to the east and south, it reached the eastern part of Guangdong, which is today's Meizhou area. Meizhou is known as the capital of Hakka, and one of the most important reasons is that Hakka culture has finally matured here.

From the Southern Song Dynasty to the Yuan Dynasty (1 127 to 1368), in about 240 years, the Hakka clan basically formed in the border areas of Jiangxi, Fujian and Guangdong provinces. The center is in Tingzhou, western Fujian. During the period from the end of Southern Song Dynasty to the beginning of Yuan Dynasty, a large number of Hakkas from Fujian and Jiangxi moved to the northeast of Guangdong. By the Ming and Qing Dynasties, Meizhou in eastern Guangdong had not only become the main distribution center of Hakkas, but also the last gathering place of Hakkas.

Due to the influence of the social environment in Ming and Qing Dynasties, such as the promulgation of the "order to move the sea", the failure of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement, especially the increasing population, Meizhou area was overwhelmed. Since then, Meizhou, an important area where Hakka people live in compact communities, is both a settlement and a diffusion center. On the one hand, a large number of Hakkas trudged from the stone walls of Ninghua or Ganzhou. On the other hand, a large number of Hakkas left Meizhou, the Hakka base camp, and spread around the world.

"The Zhi Tao arc has moved, and the south has been far away for thousands of years. Dialects are all original rhymes, and customs and habits have remained three generations ago. " It can be said that this poem by Huang Zunxian, an outstanding poet in the late Qing Dynasty, is the most concise summary of the historical origin of Hakka.