Mass migration of Han Chinese people into Manchuria in the late nineteenth century
Chuang Guandong
(
simplified Chinese
:
???
;
traditional Chinese
:
闖關東
;
pinyin
:
Chu?ng Gu?nd?ng
;
IPA
:
[???wàŋ kwán.t?́ŋ]
; literally "Crashing into Guandong" with
Guandong
being an older name for
Manchuria
) is descriptive of the rush of
Han people
into Manchuria, mainly from the
Shandong Peninsula
and
Zhili
, during the hundred-year period beginning in the last half of the 19th century. During the first two centuries of the
Manchu
-led
Qing dynasty
, this part of China, the traditional homeland of the ruling Manchus, was, with few exceptions, closed to settlement by Han civilians, with only certain Manchu bannermen,
Mongol
bannermen, and Han bannermen allowed in. The
Manchuria
/
Northeast China
area now has an overwhelmingly Han population.
Historical background
[
edit
]
Manchuria
, also called Guandong (literally, "east of the pass" referring to
Shanhai Pass
at the east end of the
Great Wall of China
) or Guanwai (
Chinese
:
關外
;
pinyin
:
Gu?nwai
;
lit.
'outside of the pass'), used to be a land of sparse population, inhabited mainly by the
Tungusic peoples
. In 1668 during the reign of the
Kangxi Emperor
, the Qing government decreed a further prohibition of non-
Eight Banner
people relocating into this area.
However, Qing rule saw a massively increasing amount of
Han people
both illegally and legally streaming into Manchuria and settling down to cultivate land as Manchu landlords desired Han peasants to rent their land and grow grain; most Han migrants were not evicted as they went over the Great Wall and
Willow Palisade
. During the eighteenth century, Han people farmed 500,000 hectares of privately owned land in Manchuria and 203,583 hectares of lands which were part of courier stations, noble estates, and Banner lands. In Manchuria, ethnic Han made up 80% of the population of garrisons and towns.
[1]
Han farmers were resettled from northern China by the Qing to the area along the
Liao River
to restore the land to cultivation.
[2]
Wasteland was reclaimed by Han squatters in addition to other Han who rented land from Manchu landlords.
[3]
Despite officially prohibiting Han settlement on the Manchu and Mongol lands, by the 18th century the Qing decided to settle Han refugees from northern China who were suffering from famine, floods, and drought into Manchuria and Inner Mongolia. By the 1780s, Han people farmed 500,000 hectares in Manchuria and tens of thousands of hectares in Inner Mongolia.
[4]
The
Qianlong Emperor
allowed Han peasants suffering from drought to move into Manchuria despite him issuing edicts in favor of banning them from 1740 to 1776.
[5]
Han tenant farmers rented or even claimed title to land from the "imperial estates" and Manchu Bannerlands in the area.
[6]
Besides moving into the Liao area in southern Manchuria, the path linking
Jinzhou
,
Fengtian
,
Tieling
,
Changchun
,
Hulun
, and
Ningguta
was settled by Han people during the Qianlong Emperor's rule. By 1800, the Han were the majority in urban areas of Manchuria.
[7]
To increase the Imperial Treasury's revenue, the Qing sold formerly Manchu lands along the
Songhua River
to Han people at the beginning of the
Daoguang Emperor
's reign, and Han people filled up most of Manchuria's towns by the 1840s according to
Abbe Huc
.
[8]
The sparse population of the Qing Empire's northeastern borderlands facilitated
the annexation
of
Outer Manchuria
(the regions north of the
Amur
and east of the
Ussuri
) by the
Russian Empire
, finalized by the
Treaty of Aigun
(1858), and the
Convention of Peking
(1860). In response, the Qing officials such as
Tepuqin
(
特普欽
), the Military Governor of
Heilongjiang
in 1859?1867, made proposals (1860) to open parts of Guandong for Han civilian farmer settlers in order to oppose further possible Russian annexations.
[9]
The Qing government subsequently changed its policy, encouraging poor farmers from the nearby
Zhili Province
(the present-day
Hebei
) and
Shandong
to move to and live in Manchuria, where one district after another became officially opened for settlement.
The exact numbers of migrants cannot be counted, because of the variety of ways of travel (some walked), and the underdeveloped government statistics apparatus. Nonetheless, based on the reports of the
Chinese Maritime Customs Service
and, later, the
South Manchurian Railway
, modern historians Thomas Gottschang and Diana Lary estimate that, during the period 1891?1942, some 25.4 million migrants arrived to Manchuria from China south of the Great Wall, and 16.7 million went back. This gives the total positive migration balance of 8.7 million people over this half a century period.
[10]
Those who moved to Manchuria were poor farmers mainly from Shandong who traveled through the land of Shanhai Pass or by sea, using the Yantai-Lushun ferry that was in service due to the
Beiyang Fleet
who were stationed in
Weihaiwei
in
Shandong Peninsula
and
Lushun
in
Liaodong Peninsula
.
[
citation needed
]
In popular arts and literature
[
edit
]
A 52-episode television drama,
Chuang Guandong
, based on this setting and script written by Gao Mantang, was broadcast on
CCTV-8
in 2008.
[11]
[12]
[13]
See also
[
edit
]
Notes
[
edit
]
- ^
Richards 2003
, p. 141.
- ^
Reardon-Anderson 2000
, p. 504.
- ^
Reardon-Anderson 2000
, p. 505.
- ^
Reardon-Anderson 2000
, p. 506.
- ^
Scharping 1998
, p. 18.
- ^
Reardon-Anderson 2000
, p. 507.
- ^
Reardon-Anderson 2000
, p. 508.
- ^
Reardon-Anderson 2000
, p. 509.
- ^
Lee 1970
, p. 103
- ^
Reardon-Anderson 2005
, p. 98
- ^
"Pathfinding to the Northeast (TV Series 2008? )"
.
IMDb
. 2008
. Retrieved
3 December
2019
.
- ^
"???"
[Chuang Guandong].
Douban
(in Chinese). 2008
. Retrieved
3 December
2019
.
- ^
"???"
.
China Central Television
(in Chinese). 2008-01-02
. Retrieved
3 December
2019
.
References
[
edit
]
- A brief Study of the "Ch'uang Kuantung" Immigration Wave
(in Chinese)
- Migration of Ethnic Hans to NE China
Archived
2011-05-22 at the
Wayback Machine
(the bottom of this page)
- Reardon-Anderson, James (Oct 2000). "Land Use and Society in Manchuria and Inner Mongolia during the Qing Dynasty".
Environmental History
.
5
(4). Forest History Society and American Society for Environmental History: 503?530.
doi
:
10.2307/3985584
.
JSTOR
3985584
.
S2CID
143541438
.
- Reardon-Anderson, James (2005),
Reluctant Pioneers: China's Expansion Northward, 1644-1937
, Studies of the Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University, Stanford University Press,
ISBN
0804751676
- Lee, Robert H. G. (1970),
The Manchurian frontier in Ch?ing history
, Volume 43 of Harvard East Asian series, Center for East Asian Studies, Harvard University,
ISBN
978-0-674-54775-9
- Edmonds, Richard Louis (1985),
Northern Frontiers of Qing China and Tokugawa Japan: A Comparative Study of Frontier Policy
, University of Chicago, Department of Geography; Research Paper No. 213,
ISBN
0-89065-118-3
- Edmonds, Richard L. (December 1979), "The Willow Palisade",
Annals of the Association of American Geographers
,
69
(4): 599?621,
doi
:
10.1111/j.1467-8306.1979.tb01285.x
,
JSTOR
2563132
? the material in this article was mostly incorporated into Edmonds' 1985 book
- James, Sir Henry Evan Murchison (1888),
The Long White Mountain, or, A journey in Manchuria: with some account of the history, people, administration and religion of that country
, Longmans, Green, and Co.
- Scharping, Thomas (1998).
"Minorities, Majorities and National Expansion: The History and Politics of Population Development in Manchuria 1610-1993"
(PDF)
.
Cologne China Studies Online ? Working Papers on Chinese Politics, Economy and Society (Kolner China-Studien Online ? Arbeitspapiere zu Politik, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft Chinas)
(1). Modern China Studies, Chair for Politics, Economy and Society of Modern China, at the University of Cologne
. Retrieved
14 August
2014
.
- Gottschang, Thomas R.; Lary, Diana (2000).
Swallows and Settlers: The Great Migration from North China to Manchuria
(PDF)
. Michigan Monographs in Chinese Studies.
University of Michigan Press
.
External links
[
edit
]
|
---|
History
| Early
(1616–1683)
| |
---|
High Qing
(1683–1799)
| |
---|
19th century
(1801–1900)
| |
---|
20th century
(1901–1912)
| |
---|
|
---|
Government
| |
---|
Military
| |
---|
Special regions
| |
---|
Palaces &
mausoleums
| |
---|
Society &
culture
| |
---|
Treaties
| |
---|
Currency
| |
---|
Other topics
| |
---|