Chinese Migration to South China
Chinese Migration to South China
Lingnan. Before the Tang dynasty (618-907), the region of the two Lingnan provinces (Guangdong and Guangxi) was infested with malaria. Few Han Chinese from the North, other than those expelled to the frontiers, crossed the ranges southward. After both the Tang and Song (960-1279) governments developed military agricultural colonies, the migration of northern people into Guangdong increased steadily. Thereafter, Fujian and Chejiang became the cultural centers of the Han Chinese when the Southern Song dynasty (1127-1279) relocated its capital to Hangzhou. After the downfall of the Northern Song (960-1125) dynasty and the occupation of North China by Genghis Khan’s powerful armies, the Han Chinese in the Yangzi (Yangtze) River valley migrated south across the Nanling ranges into the Xi River basin. In Ming times (1368-1644) many Han Chinese settled primarily in Lingnan, a favorable climatic region of the subtropical highlands. Beginning in the sixteenth century, the outward migration from southeastern China was directed overseas rather than to Yunnan because of limited overland routes. Nevertheless, both the greater opportunities provided by overseas emigration and the ease and lower cost of transport promoted this movement in the late Ming era.
Yuan Period. Before the Yuan dynasty (1279-1368), only about 20 percent of the Yunnan-Gueizhou Plateau was accessible to the Han Chinese. Yunnan was the first of the southern Chinese provinces to be ruled by the Mongols, and they dominated the region for about 130 years. The occupation of Nanchao by the armies of Kublai Khan prompted many Han Chinese immigrants to move to the highland basins—the climatically favorable plateau between the Yangzi gorges and the rift valley of the Red River of Yunnan. During Yuan times the Mongols appointed a Muslim governor in this region, and thereafter many Chinese Muslims moved from northwest China into the Yunnan region. In some locations of Yunnan there were also many settlers from Turkestan.
Ming Period. Substantial immigration of the Chinese into Yunnan continued during the Ming dynasty. In 1382, after wiping out the last remnants of the Nanxiao rulers, who had their own government at Dali as vassals of the Mongols, the Ming government promoted the settlement of Yunnan in a planned and large-scale manner. When the first Ming emperor established his government at Nanjing, he forced the former residents of Nanjing to migrate to Yunnan so as to reduce their influence in the capital. Another massive influx of settlers to Yunnan came with the Ming armies. Many troops recruited from South China were sent to Yunnan to put down the local rebel-lions at the beginning of the Ming dynasty. The Chinese soldiers who were then the main center of Ming power mainly came from the Yangzi province. They later became established as landlords and local nobles in all the major urban centers and key agricultural plains. The policy of sending exiles to a variety of places in Yunnan also arose in Ming times. Among them were some famous persons, including the philosopher Wang Yangming, banished to Gueizhou during the reign of Wuzong (1506-1522). As a result the number of recently appointed civil servants, merchants, and other transmitters of Han Chinese cultures grew steadily. (In fact, by 1644 Ming culture had spread to about 60-70 percent of China Proper.) The Han Chinese migrants to Yunnan predominantly came from the Yangzhou delta area and to a lesser extent from the Hunan and Nanjing regions. This migration became the exceptional ethnographical contribution of the Ming dynasty in Han Chinese history.
ARABS IN CANTON
During the twelfth century, many Arab merchants traveled by sea to Guangzhou in South China, where they became wealthy and powerful. The author, who lived early in the thirteenth century, described the life of an Arab family in the city. He wrote:
The “Sea barbarians” lived side by side with the Chinese in Canton and the most powerful of them was a man named P’u. Mr. P’u, a white barbarian, came from Chan-ch’eng where he was reported to be a man of great importance. On his way to China, he encouraged a heavy storm; and fearful of the sea, he requested his employer to let him stay in China as a commercial agent so that he did not have to risk his life on the stormy sea again. His employer agreed to his request.. ..
Having been in the city for a long time, the P’u family lived a life of luxury far exceeding the level permitted under the law. However, since the local government was interested in encouraging more traders to come and since the family involved was not Chinese, it did not wish to concern itself with the violation. Thus the P’u house became bigger and more luxurious as its wealth continued to grow at a fast rate.
Source: Yo K’o, “History of Ch’eng,” in The Essence of Chinese Civilization, edited by Dun J. Li (Princeton, N.J.: D. Van Nostrand, 1967).
Impact. Since the Yuan period, Yunnan had gradually assimilated into Chinese civilization. The Ming dynasty had great impact on Yunnan, particularly on its transportation system. The iron-chain suspension bridges, which spanned the Mekong and Salween rivers, in addition to many lesser rivers in western Yunnan, resulted from the technology introduced by the Han people to Yunnan during the period 1368-1644. The caravan road system, a network of paved pathways crossing ranges and rivers and connecting every major city in the province with other provinces of China, as far as Beijing, was built at that time. Along these roads great slabs of marble, which were eighteen feet in length and five feet wide, were transported in 1405 because the Ming Emperor Yongle was in need of them for constructing the imperial palace at Beijing. Dug out on the high mountain slope at Dali, they were pulled and rolled for hundreds of miles until they could be shipped on rafts on the Hunan River. In addition, Ming builders contributed greatly to many cities of Yunnan, introducing the Chinese architecture style, such as rectilinear walls and cross streets.
Sources
C. P. Fitzgerald, The Southern Expansion of the Chinese People (London: Barrie & Jenkins, 1972).
Richard von Glahn, The Country of Streams and Grottoes: Expansion, Settlement, and the Civilizing of the Sichuan Frontier in Song Times (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1987).
Herold J. Wiens, Han Chinese Expansion in South China (Hamden, Conn.: Shoe String Press, 1967).