There is a popular saying in China recently that migration in the
Three Gorges area is the largest of its kind in Chinese history.
This idea has gained wide attention as people in this area are
moving to other parts of China. Some even call it the largest ever
migration in the world. This is totally inconsistent with
historical facts.
China has witnessed a lot of great migrations in history.
In
127 BC, during the reign of Emperor Hanwu, about 100,000 people
from what is now Hebei, Shandong, Henan and Anhui provinces were
summoned to move to the Hetao Plain and areas to the south of the
Yellow River. In 119 BC, 720,000 poor people migrated to southern
Inner Mongolia, northwestern Shanxi and Shaanxi provinces, southern
Ningxia and the Hexi Corridor of Gansu Province. The next year,
both officials and common people thought to be treacherous were
exiled to border areas, their number estimated to be in the
hundreds of thousands. Also, there are some other migrations
organized by officials at different places. In a period of more
than 20 years, the government had implemented a migration of 1.2
million people, more than 3 percent of the total population, 36
million, of the Han Dynasty (206 BC-220 AD). Most of the moving and
resettlement fees were borne by the government. En route, the
migration was supervised by a large number of officials and
soldiers. The migrants covered hundreds of kilometers, sometimes
3,000 kilometers, before they finally settled down.
In
493 AD, Emperor Xiaowen of the Northern Wei Dynasty (386-534)
decided to move the capital from Pingcheng (now Datong) of Shanxi
Province to Luoyang of Henan Province. It took two years and
involved over a million officials and common people; all finally
settled in Luoyang and surrounding areas.
The Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) also witnessed large-scale migrations.
Some were carried out by administrative means or the military,
while others were done under the preferential policies provided by
officials. Major migrations include moving both rich households and
farmers without land in south China to what is now Fengyang, Anhui
Province; moving officials, rich households, craftsmen and soldiers
to Nanjing; stationing soldiers and their relatives all over the
country by setting up wei or suo (both meaning places
for stationing troops in the Ming Dynasty), some of whom got as far
as Yunnan and Gansu provinces; resettling surrendered or captured
Mongolian soldiers or civilians in north China; migrating people
from border areas of northern Shanxi and Inner Mongolia to
Fengyang, Anhui Province; moving people from Shandong and Jiangxi
provinces to Fengyang; distributing Shanxi people to Shandong,
Henan, Hebei and Beijing; moving Jiangxi people to Hubei, Hunan,
Anhui, Sichuan and northern Jiangsu; and migrating people from
Hubei, Hunan, Anhui and Jiangxi to Sichuan. The number of soldiers
and civilians involved reached 11 million, about 16 percent of the
total population. The non-military migrants accounted to 7 million,
over 10 percent of the total population.
At
the beginning of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), preferential
policies were made by Emperors Kangxi, Yongzheng and Qianlong to
encourage people to migrate to Sichuan Province. By 1776,
immigrants to Sichuan and their descendants reached 6 million,
accounting for more than 60 percent of the province's population.
They mainly came from Hunan, Hubei, Guangdong, Jiangxi, Fujian,
Guizhou and Shaanxi provinces.
In
1860, the Qing Dynasty opened the "forbidden land" in the
northeast. With encouraging measures later, a great many persons
moved in from north China provinces such as Shandong and Hebei. By
the end of the Qing Dynasty, the accumulated number of migrants
went up to 10 million.
The migrations mentioned above didn't include three large-scale
southward migrations in Chinese history, for example, millions of
people moved southward during the catastrophe in the Year of
Jingkang (1127), when the Kin army marched south, captured the
eastern capital of the Song Dynasty and took both the emperor
Qinzong and his father Huizong prisoner. Nor did they include
migrations in the turbulent years of war. Before the 4th century,
for instance, the Later Zhao State (319-350) compelled the
migration of millions of people to the Xiang Kingdom (now Xingtai
of Hebei Province) or just moving within their own borders.
It
is estimated that there will be 1.2 million migrants from the Three
Gorges area, accounting for 4 percent of population of Chongqing
Municipality. In the total population of 1.3 billion of the
country; they account for no more than 0.1 percent. It will take 10
years for them to completely move out of the area. To date, most
migrations occurred in local places, covering a distance of only
scores of kilometers. Only a few went to other provinces such as
Hainan, Fujian, Shanghai, Jiangsu, Hunan and Jiangxi. Investment
from the central and local governments is also huge. Therefore,
speaking from the number of people involved, migration distance,
percentage of migrants in the total population and difficulty of
migration, the Three Gorges migration could not be called the
largest in Chinese history. Certainly, it is not the largest one in
the migration history of the world.
It's true that the Three Gorges migration is undertaken under the
condition that China has a population of 1.3 billion. Most people
are to be resettled in mountainous areas along the Yangtze River,
which boasts a limited population capacity and fragile ecological
environment. So the difficulties cannot be ignored. However, this
could not be a reason for exaggerating the Three Gorges migration
in Chinese history.
The wrong saying has lasted for years. It should not go on to leave
an "area of error" in the Three Gorges Project.
(china.org.cn by Li Jinhui August 3, 2002)