Why did 30 million people fight their way to the Kanto region at the end of the Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the Republic of China?

"Ice and snow have long covered my footprints, and the distant smoke is swaying and calling me warmly. The wind cannot break my gaze as I look back, and my home seems to be an eternal journey..." As Liu Huan stretched out his deep voice, The plot of the TV series "Crossing Guandong" appeared scene by scene.

This TV series directed by Zhang Xinjian and Kong Sheng, starring Li Youbin, Sarina, Xiao Songjia, Zhu Yawen, etc., vividly depicts the story of Shandong farmer Zhu Kaishan and his family who left their hometown and traveled to Guandong in the late Qing Dynasty. It was broadcast on the TV station and has won important awards such as the Golden Eagle Award for Best Long-form TV Series and the First Prize for Feitian Award for Long-form TV Series.

The story of Zhu Kaishan’s family’s invasion of Guandong is a microcosm of the wave of invasion of Guandong in the late Qing Dynasty and the early Republic of China. Data shows that from the late Qing Dynasty to the early Republic of China, a total of 30 million people traveled from the Central Plains to the Kanto region through hardships and dangers. A considerable number of them did not succeed and became bones on the wandering road; some lucky ones arrived at their destination, took root among the white mountains and black waters, and multiplied.

1

The "pass" in "Crossing Guandong" refers to Shanhaiguan.

Shanhaiguan is a pass on the Great Wall and is known as "the first pass in the world". Shanhaiguan is named after Yanshan Mountain to the north and Bohai Sea to the south. As a military pass, Shanhaiguan clearly separates the inside and outside of the pass. Outside the Pass is the Guandong region; within the Pass is the Central Plains region.

After the Qing Dynasty took over the Central Plains, it abolished the Great Wall but retained the existence of Shanhaiguan. Starting from Emperor Kangxi, the Qing Dynasty used Shanhaiguan as the boundary and prohibited people from the Central Plains from entering the Guandong region at will, in order to protect the so-called "Land of Dragons" in Guandong and prevent the "Dragon Veins" of the Qing Dynasty from being excavated. At the same time, we protect Kanto specialties such as ginseng, mink, and uraku grass to ensure the supply of the royal family.

In addition, the Qing Dynasty also built several sections of wicker fences with a length of more than a thousand kilometers outside Shanhaiguan, which are called "wicker borders". Like Shanhaiguan, the purpose of Wickerbian is to isolate and protect the Kanto region.

Under the Qing Dynasty's ban policy, the vast Kanto region became an inaccessible place. Later, more than 1.4 million square kilometers of land was eroded by Tsarist Russia by force.

Two

Time flies and we arrive at the mid-19th century.

At that time, China had entered a troubled modern society. The Central Plains region is located on the lower reaches of the Yellow River and has been a prosperous and prosperous land since ancient times. However, during the late Qing Dynasty, the lower reaches of the Yellow River were silted up and the Qing government, facing external and internal troubles, could not afford to manage the Yellow River. As a result, Yellow River breaches occurred year after year, often causing disasters and making people's lives miserable.

In addition to the Yellow River flooding, the Central Plains region also often suffered from war and chaos. The Qing government's exorbitant taxes and levies were also unbearable for the people of the Central Plains. What to do? The people of the Central Plains did not sit still and wait for death. They set their sights on the vast and sparsely populated Kanto region.

The Kanto region at that time was simply a paradise for the people of the Central Plains.

The Guandong region covers an area of ??more than 1 million square kilometers, and the area of ??Heilongjiang Province alone exceeds the combined area of ??Shandong and Hebei Provinces. The land here is fertile, rich in products, and very suitable for growing crops. Moreover, due to the ban policy implemented by the Qing Dynasty, the Guandong region has been in a state of unexploitation for a long time. For the people in the Central Plains region, it is simply a vast tract of treasure!

The only obstacle is the ban policy.

三

Since the mid-19th century, the Qing Dynasty has been in decline under the double blow of Western powers and the Taiping Peasant Rebel Army, and its control over this ancient empire has gradually weakened. Shanhaiguan and Liuzhoubian have long been in vain, and people continue to sneak into Kanto through Shanhaiguan and Liuzhoubian.

On September 6, 1860, in order to resist the invasion of the Heilongjiang border by Tsarist Russia, the then Heilongjiang general Tepuqin proposed to the court the suggestion of "removing the ban and recruiting people to reclaim wasteland." The Qing government approved and implemented it. From then on, the Qing court's ban policy was abolished in the north of Heilongjiang. In 1897, all bans were lifted in the Kanto region.

A door that had been sealed for nearly 200 years slowly opened, and people from the Central Plains flooded into the Kanto region. By 1910, on the eve of the fall of the Qing Dynasty, the total population of the Kanto region had increased dramatically to 18 million.

Four

However, the road to Guandong is not smooth sailing. In fact, during the long journey from the mainland to the Kanto region, everyone has to overcome various difficulties and obstacles. At the end of the Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the Republic of China when transportation was inconvenient and public security was poor, they either traveled across the ocean, climbed mountains and waded in rivers, fought with wild beasts everywhere, and had to avoid vicious bandits...

Countless people have not yet After arriving in Kanto, he fell down on the journey and never got up again, becoming the bones of the journey north.

The Japanese Hirataka Kogoshi made two in-depth inspections of the Northeast region and wrote "Travel Notes on Manchuria" based on his personal experience. The book records the real scene of the invasion of Guandong: "From Fengtian to Xingjing, on the road I saw a husband holding a wheelbarrow, a woman sitting on it, a crying child, a sleeping child, the husband pushed from behind, the younger brother pulled from the front, the old woman held a stick, and the girl depended on each other. , Staggering on the road, the husband scolded his young wife, and the old mother called her children.

”

Even the Central Plains people who successfully came to the Kanto region still had to adapt to the new environment. Initially, the aboriginal people in the Northeast were not friendly to these outsiders and maintained a repulsive attitude. Therefore, the Central Plains people They had to engage in heavy manual labor to survive. At the same time, the Kanto region had always been plagued by banditry, which made it more difficult for the Central Plains people to establish themselves in the Northeast.

The Central Plains people originally came to the Kanto region to escape the war. Unexpectedly, the Russo-Japanese War broke out in 1904, and the Kanto region became one of the main battlefields where the Japanese and Russian troops fought fiercely. It was shrouded in a hail of bullets. The lives and properties of the people in the Northeast were catastrophically destroyed, and hundreds of thousands of people lost their homes. Displaced. Many people from the Central Plains who had settled in the Northeast were forced to return to Guandong. The history of the journey to Guandong is a history of resistance, struggle, and blood and tears.

Five

In the end, the people of the Central Plains overcame many difficulties and used their hard-working hands to carve out a world in the Kanto region. They thrived in the Kanto region and closely linked their destiny to the white mountains and black waters.

Many famous figures in modern history are descendants of the people who invaded Guandong, such as Zhang Zuolin, Zhao Shangzhi, Du Lisan and others.

Zhang Zuolin is a representative figure of the Feng clique and is in charge of politics. For more than 10 years in the Northeast, Zhang Zuolin's ancestral home was Dacheng County, Hebei Province. During the Daoguang period of the Qing Dynasty, Zhang Zuolin's ancestors left their hometown and settled in Fengtian (today's Shenyang).

Zhao Shangzhi was a member of the Northeast Anti-Japanese War. One of the founders and leaders of the coalition, his ancestral home is Li Jinzhuang, Qidong County, Shandong Province. His ancestors crossed the Guandong region and entered Nanbadao Village, Chaoyang County, Rehe, where they settled down.

Du Lisan is a Green Lin with an experience similar to that of Zhang Zuolin. A good man, known as the "Big Bandit of Western Liaoning". His ancestral home is Tianjin. He followed his father to Qingmacan Village, Yujiafang Town, Liaozhong County. Du Lisan often fought against the Russian army and was later called "the foreigner who defeated Zhang Zuolin". booby trap.

Reference materials: "Chinese Population Geography", "Manuscripts of Qing History", etc.