Immigrant culture
The historical background of immigration
Why, six hundred years ago, did the authorities organize such large-scale migration campaigns from the Great Locust Tree in Hongtong County, Shanxi? This was driven by political, economic, and other social factors. First, the ruling class—corrupt officials—engaged in ruthless exploitation. In the later Yuan dynasty, land became highly concentrated: Mongol aristocrats had fully transformed into feudal landlords, each holding vast tracts of farmland. Most of them leased this land back to peasants under harsh conditions, exploiting them through tenancy. As a result, “the wealthy reaped millions of hu of grain each year, while the common people gained nothing to store.” In the northern regions, unequal taxation and corvée labor further exacerbated disparities, leaving the rich ever richer and the poor ever poorer.
The Historical Significance of the Great Locust Tree Migration
The peasant uprisings at the end of the Yuan dynasty dealt a severe blow to the great landlord class of that era and also served as a sobering lesson for the new emperor, Zhu Yuanzhang. After the Ming dynasty was established, in order to consolidate the economic foundations of his rule, he instituted policies of resettlement and land reclamation, promoting civilian, military, and commercial colonization schemes. This policy reached its peak during the reigns of the Hongwu, Jianwen, and Yongle emperors—spanning more than fifty years—during which regions devastated by war, particularly the Central Plains and the northern territories, gradually stabilized, social order was restored, agricultural production resumed and expanded, and overall societal stability improved. Consequently, both the population and the area under cultivation steadily increased, leading to higher grain yields and greater tax revenues for the state. Meanwhile, both state‑run and privately operated handicraft industries gradually resumed production.
Migration History – Reasons for Migration from Hongdong
Reasons for the Hongtong Population Relocation Regarding the population relocations during the Ming Dynasty, not only do unofficial historical accounts and folk legends attest to them, but official historical records also provide concrete evidence. According to the local gazetteer of Hongtong County, “During the Hongwu and Yongle reigns of the Ming Dynasty, the government repeatedly relocated people from Shanxi to areas such as Chuzhou, Hebei, Beijing, Shandong, Henan, and Baoding, turning these places into hubs of population concentration.” This was the largest government‑organized population relocation in Chinese history, spanning fifty years from the early Hongwu period through the fifteenth year of the Yongle era. As for the reasons behind these relocations, numerous folk tales abound; the two most widely circulated are the story of “Hu Dahai’s Revenge” and the “Three Cleansings of Huaiqing Prefecture.” According to legend, at the end of the Yuan Dynasty, Hu Dahai, driven by poverty, fell into destitution and became a beggar, wandering from village to village in the region of Henan.
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