It is said on the Internet that the Shu people have disappeared long ago, but do you know where the Sichuan people today come from?

Copywriting planning and supervision: Yuan Zaiyu; copywriting: Long Siyi

Sichuan is located in the southwest corner and is known as the "Land of Abundance". There are 80 million people from twelve ethnic groups including Han, Yi, Tibetan, Qiang, Miao, Tujia, Lisu, Naxi, Buyi, Bai, Zhuang and Dai living here, ranking fourth among the provinces. A truly populous province.

However, among these 80 million people, most of them do not have the blood of the ancient Shu people. The Shu people in the true sense disappeared with the demise of the ancient Shu civilization as early as two thousand years ago.

Most of the people in Sichuan today are descendants of immigrants.

Sichuan was “filled in” from all over the world

The first batch of Sichuan immigrants can be traced back to the Warring States Period.

At that time, King Qin Huiwen saw that Sichuan was a treasure land with huge development potential, so he sent troops to destroy the Bashu and Bashu kingdoms through the Golden Bull Road and occupied the Bashu area. In order to promote development, King Qin Huiwen issued a decree to exile all those who violated Qin law to Sichuan, which opened the curtain of immigration to Sichuan.

Later, the famous "water conservancy experts" Li Bing and his son were ordered to carry out water conservancy projects in the Chengdu Plain and built Dujiangyan, which greatly improved Sichuan's agricultural conditions.

With agricultural conditions improved, a large number of manpower will be needed. However, after several migrations from Guanzhong, the labor force in Shu is still insufficient. In order to solve the problem of insufficient manpower, the First Emperor moved a large number of survivors from the Six Kingdoms to Shu after sweeping away Liuhe.

Since then, after several generations of kings from the Qin and Han dynasties, Sichuan has transformed from an uninhabited land into a prosperous "land of abundance".

The second batch of Sichuan immigrants occurred during the Three Kingdoms and Two Jin Dynasties.

At the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, the world was in chaos and the people were in dire straits. First came the Yellow Turban Rebellion, warlord separatism, and the establishment of the Three Kingdoms. Later, there was the Rebellion of the Eight Kings and the Five Husbands, and wars continued in the Central Plains. The prosperous "Land of Abundance" naturally became the "favorite target" of the fleeing people and won the favor of refugees.

Therefore, during this period, a large number of people chose to immigrate to Sichuan, starting Sichuan's second "immigration boom."

After this immigration, the population of Sichuan directly doubled several times.

The third batch of immigrants occurred in the late Tang Dynasty, Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period.

After the Anshi Rebellion and the Huangchao Uprising, the Tang Empire collapsed, leaving behind the Later Liang, Later Tang, Later Jin, Later Han, Later Zhou, Former Shu, Later Shu, Southern Wu (Yang Wu), Southern Tang, Wu Yue, There were dozens of small regimes in Min, Southern Chu (Ma Chu), Southern Han, Nanping (Jingnan), and Northern Han, and China once again entered troubled times.

At that time, Shu and Southern Tang successively ruled Sichuan. The rulers of these three kingdoms were all unambitious and "peace-loving." Therefore, Sichuan's environment was relatively stable compared to the north. And because the rulers liked poetry and songs, it became a "cultural holy land" and attracted a large number of literati from the Central Plains. people immigrated to Sichuan.

The Tang Dynasty culture brought by this immigration had a profound impact on Sichuan culture. For a long time afterwards, Sichuan retained the legacy of the Tang Dynasty.

The fourth batch of immigrants occurred at the end of the Yuan Dynasty and the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, and was known as the first "Huguang filling Sichuan".

At the end of the Song Dynasty and the beginning of the Yuan Dynasty, the people of Sichuan launched a desperate resistance against the Yuan army. Therefore, after the Mongolian cavalry invaded Sichuan, they "liquidated" the Shu people and massacred villages and cities in various ways.

By the early years of the Ming Dynasty, Sichuan's population had plummeted from 10 million to 800,000 (including Mongolian soldiers and civilians). In order to change Sichuan's vast territory and sparsely populated situation and restore Sichuan's economy, Zhu Yuanzhang ordered a large number of people from the Hunan, Hunan, and Guangxi regions to be moved to Sichuan, totaling 300,000 people.

It was not until the end of the Ming Dynasty that Sichuan Province gradually recovered its vitality, and its population rose back to four million.

The fifth batch of immigrants occurred more than 300 years later in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, which was also known as the second "Huguang filling Sichuan".

After the devastation caused by Zhang Xianzhong and the Qing army, Sichuan encountered the plague again, suffered a devastating blow, and became a "no man's land." According to a census conducted in the 24th year of Kangxi's reign, there were only more than 90,000 people left in the huge Sichuan.

In order to restore Sichuan's economy, Emperor Kangxi issued the "Edict of Chu Minshi Sichuan" and ordered the people from the two regions of Hunan and Guangxi to be forcibly transported to Sichuan.

With the official promotion, people from many other provinces later joined the ranks of immigrants and headed to Sichuan, the "land of opportunity."

This turns Sichuan’s population into a “hodgepodge”. By the time of statistics at the end of the Qing Dynasty, the population composition of Chengdu alone was extremely complex. Almost all of them were descendants of immigrants from other provinces. Among them, those originally from Hubei accounted for 15% of the total population, Hunan 10%, Henan and Shandong 5%, and Shaanxi 10%. , Yunnan and Guizhou 15%, Jiangxi 15%, Anhui 5%, Jiangsu and Zhejiang 10%, Guangdong and Guangxi 10%, Fujian, Shanxi and Gansu 5%.

This immigration is the largest in Sichuan history.

The last large-scale immigration occurred during the Anti-Japanese War.

Due to the fall of Nanjing and the crisis in Wuhan, the Nationalist Government moved the capital to Chongqing, the "Fog City". What followed was the inward relocation of major companies and academic institutions.

At the same time, a large number of refugees also poured into Sichuan with the wave of internal migration and settled there.

This immigration indirectly promoted the development of Sichuan's industry and education.

Yuan Shi has something to say

It can be said that immigrants from all over the country made Sichuan what it is today. With the efforts of generations of immigrants, Sichuan developed step by step and became a province with a large economy and population.

Whether our ancestors come from Shaanxi and Gansu in the northwest, Shandong and Henan in the Central Plains, Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Fujian in the southeast, or Huguang, everyone is the same now, speaking the same dialect, and they are all authentic Taoist Sichuan people.

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