Does anyone know what "westward" means in Shanxi history?

Xikou, in a narrow sense, refers to the mouth north of the Great Wall, including Shahukou in Shanxi; Fugukou, Shaanxi; Dushikou, Hebei Province, is the intersection of people from northern Shanxi, northern Shaanxi and Hebei Province moving westward. Xikou is a place where Shanxi merchants and Shaanxi merchants pass customs and trade with Inner Mongolia and Outer Mongolia. People passing through Xikou are mainly from northern Shaanxi, northern Shaanxi and Hebei. Houxikou generally refers to the place where Mongolia engages in agriculture and commodity trade north of the Great Wall, including Shenmukou in northern Shaanxi, Zhangjiakou and Guihuacheng in northern Hebei (now Hohhot).

Westbound is one of the five most famous migration events in China's modern history. In the long history of more than 400 years from the mid-Ming Dynasty to the early Republic of China, countless Shanxi people, Shaanxi people and Hebei people left their homes, which opened up the economic and cultural channel between the hinterland of the Central Plains and the Mongolian grassland and promoted the prosperity and development of the northern region.

The barren land, frequent natural disasters and poor living environment in northern Shanxi have forced many northerners to make a living outside. There is an old saying in Shanxi, "Hequ defends Texas, and it will not be collected for ten years and nine years." Men go outside and women dig wild vegetables, which fully shows that most people who go to the west are hungry people caused by natural disasters. From the third year to the fifth year of Guangxu reign in Qing Dynasty, Shanxi and other provinces suffered from drought for three consecutive years, and the worst drought occurred in modern times, known as the "Seven Famines in butyl five", and it didn't even rain in some areas. Population migration caused by natural disasters is most prominent in northern Shanxi, such as Xinzhou and Yanbei. The barren land and harsh natural environment in northern Shanxi forced a large number of people to leave their homes. Groups of immigrants left their homes and came to Mongolia outside Beikou to develop Inner Mongolia. They brought advanced farming culture to the central and western Inner Mongolia, which was in a backward nomadic state at that time, and fundamentally changed the whole local cultural landscape.