|
????The earliest histories say that the people
living on the Central Plains in the Yellow River valley
were called the Xia. In the area from the Huaihe River
to Mount Taishan in the east lived the Dongyi; in the
Yangtze valley in the south, the people were called
Sanmiao; in the area beyond the Yellow River to the
Huangshui River in the northwest were those called the
Qiang; and in the area around the northern deserts were
people called the Hunzhou (including the Shanrong and
Xianyun). The Xia people established links with the
people of other nationalities in their vicinity.
From the Shang and Western Zhou dynasties
to the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods
(16th century-221 B.C.), closer contacts developed among
these ethnic groups. Alliances were formed between the
Shang and Zhou groups and those of the Dongyi and Daoyi
in the east, Sushen in the northeast, Nanman in the
south, and the Di, Rong and Kunyi in the west and north,
leading to mutual influence and eventual merging. During
this period the Huaxia nation came into existence, through
a merger of the Xia, Zhou and Shang with the Qiang,
Rong, Kunyi, Miao and Man peoples.
The Spring and Autumn (770-476 B.C.)
and Warring States (475-221 B.C.) periods saw a transition
of various states on the Central Plains from slave system
to feudalism. It is said that there were 1,800 "states"
during the Zhou Dynasty (11th century-771 B.C.), but
through war and absorption, the number dwindled to 100
by the Spring and Autumn Period. Of the hundred states,
only seven remained in central China through the Warring
States Period.
The First Emperor of Qin, following his unification
of the country in 221 B.C., centralized the multi-national
state under a feudal autocracy. The Dongyis living along
the Huaihe River, the Nanman in the Yangtze valley,
the Baiyues living in present-day Guangdong, Guangxi,
Fujian and Zhejiang, the Zhurongs in the western part
of the country and such various ethnic groups as the
Ze, Bu and Yanlang, all came under the rule of the Qin
emperor. Within his domain he instituted prefectures
and counties directly under central authority, establishing
for the first time in China a central feudal state power.
But in some places there remained rival powers, leading
to lengthy, serious conflicts. Under the brief Qin rule,
some small states developed among the Xiongnu (Huns)
living in the north and the Wusuns in the northwest,
as well as among the Qiangs living in the western part
of the country and the Donghu, Xianbeis, Wuhuan and
Yufu groups living in the northeast.
During the Han Dynasty (206 B.C.-A.D.
220), the country became further unified as the Huaxia
absorbed many other tribes to become one nation known
as the Han.
By the end of the second century B.C.,
the Han Dynasty had brought the Qiang of the northwest
under control; by the year 119 B.C., the Wusun came
into the empire, followed by the Man people on Hainan
Island in the south in 110 B.C., and the southern Xiongnu
in 91 B.C. The northern Xiongnu, meanwhile, began a
migration into Europe that would end with numerous wars
between the tribe under its leader Attila and local
powers.
In 60 B.C., the Han Dynasty established
a regional government in what is today Xinjiang, a step
that led to the merger of more than 30 small city states.
For a while, the Xianbei people, who had taken over
the territory abandoned by the northern Xiongnu, posed
a threat to the dynasty; after a period of internecine
struggle, its chief, Budugeng, led most of the Xianbei
people into an alliance with the Eastern Han.
During the Wei, Jin and Southern and
Northern dynasties (A.D. 220-581) the various major
powers in China fought through 300 years of factionalism,
marked by wholesale migrations and national annexation
and assimilation. Toward the end of the Eastern Han
Dynasty, people of many ethnic minority groups moved
across the Great Wall to live co-mingled with the Han
people on the Central Plains. The population thus formed
consisted half of the Hans and half of the Rong and
Kunyi tribes.
The years following the demise of Western
Jin (A.D. 265-316) saw another period of fragmentation,
with 23 local powers and seven ethnic groups rising
in the northern part of the country and Sichuan, known
in old histories as a period of "Five Tribes and
Sixteen States." Living in the northeast at this
time were the Fuyu and Yilou people; the Rouran, Tiele
and Turk tribe were active in the north and northwest,
and the Tuguhun and Di people lived on the Qinghai-Tibet
Plateau. Closer contacts and assimilation took place
among the various tribes as a result of migration into
the Central Plains. A great number of Han war refugees
moved southward into the Yangtze and Pearl River valleys
and northward beyond the Great Wall.
By the Sui and Tang dynasties (A.D.
581-907), China was reunited. Political, economic and
cultural contacts between the ethnic groups were strengthened
and developed as never before. Following the demise
of the Sui (A.D. 581-618), the Tang Dynasty in A.D.
630 conquered the Eastern Turks living both south and
north of the Gobi Desert, and in A.D. 657 the Western
Turks in modern Xinjiang and Central Asia. Tang armies
followed up with conquest of the Gaochang, Yanqi, Guizi,
Shule and Yutian regimes formerly allied to the Western
Turks. Later, after the Uygur grew strong on the former
land of the Turk, the local rulers were given the titles
"Governor of Hanghai" and "Huairen Khan"
by the Tang government.
In 713, the ruler of the state of Zhen,
established in the northeast by the Sumo and Mohe tribes,
was given the titles "Dashing Grand General of
the Left Guard" and "Prince of the State of
Bohai" by the Tang government.
In the Nenjiang and Heilong river valleys,
the Shiwei tribe early pledged their allegiance to the
Tang court. Established in present-day Yunnan Province,
a strong local power called the Southern Zhao formed
an alliance with the Wuman tribe, the Baiman and other
related tribes, their chieftains being respectively
accorded the titles "Imperial Inspector,"
"King of Yunnan" and "King of the Southern
Zhao." Living in the southwest and in south central
China, the Li, Liao, Wuximan, Siyuanman and Moyao tribes
also came within the jurisdiction of prefectures, counties
and dao (circuits) of the Tang court.
Prefectures and sub-prefectures were
likewise established in most of the border areas of
the ethnic minorities. Tribal chiefs were set up as
governors and imperial inspectors, and were granted
hereditary offices and empowered to rule in the capacity
of local authorities. Under the governors' offices local
census lists were developed and independent taxes were
collected at prefectural, subprefectural and county
levels beyond the jurisdiction of the central treasury.
There was then a system of 856 prefectures, sub-prefectures
and counties established throughout China, forcing closer
ties between the central Tang government and the country's
multiple nationalities.
During the Five Dynasties and Ten States
period (A.D. 907-979), China was again plunged into
70 years of fragmentation. These rival powers were established
mainly by the Han; the Later Tang was the only dynasty
created by a minority people, the Shatuo of the Turkic
people. Along with these rival powers existed the State
of Qidan (Khitan, later renamed the State of Liao) established
by the Qidan tribe, the State of Dali formed by the
Baiman tribe and many other small states of the Uygur,
Tufan, Di and Qiang.
In the Song, Liao and Kin time (960-1234),
an end was put to the separatist regimes. The Song (960-1279)
rose in the south in direct opposition to the Qidan
State of Liao (916-1125) and Nuzhen's State of Kin (1115-1234)
in the north. During the Song era the Dangxiang of the
Qing tribe established the Daxia (Western Xia) regime
(1032-1227), subjecting China to another 300 years of
fragmented rule.
In 1206, Genghis Khan consolidated
all the Mongol tribes. A Mongolian empire was created
by his conquest of the Gaochang-Uygur, Western Liao,
Western Xia, Jin, Dali and Tufan states, renamed in
1271 the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368). By 1279 the country
was brought under a centralized rule of the Yuan following
the final collapse of the Southern Song (1127-1279).
Under Yuan rule "provincial governments" were
instituted and empowered to administer areas where the
minorities lived in the Northeast, Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang,
Guangdong, Guangxi, Yunnan and Guizhou; special administrative
departments were established to take charge of affairs
in Tibet, and Penghu and Taiwan. Moreover, tribal chiefs
were granted hereditary offices as local rulers and
vested with administrative powers to draft soldiers,
conscript labor, collect tax and exact tributes on behalf
of the court. These measures brought the various localities
of the minority nationalities under closer central control
than they had known during the Tang and Song period
of prefectures and sub-prefectures.
Provincial governments were instituted,
consisting of co-administrations by local officials
with hereditary titles and officials sent by the Yuan
court. Above this level were posts manned by court officials,
and direct control imposed by the court through officials
either centrally dispatched or recruited from the ethnic
chiefs.
During the rule of the Ming Dynasty
(1368-1644), centralized control further eroded the
powers of the individual tribal chiefs. By tightening
control of the border areas and paving the way for increased
commerce between various tribal groups, the Ming rulers
succeeded in bringing about the collapse of the feudal
economy in China as a whole. In some minority areas,
however, truly feudal economic structures persisted
until, and even beyond, the liberation in 1949.
In 1616, Nurhachi, a tribal chief of
the Manchus, annexed the various groups of the Nuzhen
tribe and established in 1635 the state of "Later
Kin," which was renamed "Qing" in 1636.
The years after the downfall of the Ming Dynasty saw
the various nationalities further unified. In the north,
the Qing unified the three Mongol groups -- Southern
Mongolians, Northern Mongolians (Khalthas) and Western
Mongolians (Eleuts or Qirats) -- living respectively
south, north and west of the Gobi Desert. By putting
down rebellions of the Mongolian Jungar tribe, reactionary
elements among the Huis (Uygurs) and the upper classes
of Tibet collaborating with the Mongolians in Xinjiang
and Tibet, the Qing government consolidated its control
of these areas and maintained the unity of the country.
In the process of repelling an invasion
by Tsarist Russia, the Qing government strengthened
its control in the northeast, especially among the ethnic
minorities in the Heilong River drainage. The Qing government
also set up a provincial government and county administrations
on the island of Taiwan, finally establishing sovereignty
over the whole of China and bringing all peoples of
the Chinese nation under centralized rule.
Though feudal autocratic rule bore
little hope for a thorough elimination of divisions
within China, the struggle for unification always stood
as a central task. In the country's recorded history
two thirds of the time was devoted to the establishment
and preservation of unity, whereas one third was spent
fragmented. With each new step toward unification, the
various ethnic groups and their economy and culture
progressed, forging a closer relationship among them.
|
