History of China and the Chinese People
Him Mark Lai
Creation Myths and Legendary Sovereigns
China has a number of creation myths. One commonly accepted version tells of the
primeval matter that gave birth to Pangu 盤古, who stood with his head touching the sky and his
feet on earth. Each day the sky became higher by ten feet, the earth thickened by ten feet, and
Pangu grew ten feet. It was alleged that after 18,000 years the sky reached its present altitude
and the earth its present thickness. After Pangu's death parts of his body became the sun,
moon, stars, rivers and mountains. Inserts on his body became human beings. Pangu was
succeeded in turn by Tianhuang 天皇 (Heavenly ruler), Dihuang 地皇 (Earthly ruler), and
Renhuang 人皇 (Human ruler), who altogether ruled for another 45,600 years.
The beginnings of civilization came with inventions and discoveries by another
succession of legendary rulers. Accordingly, Youchao Shi 有巢氏 taught mankind how to build
shelters in trees from branches and leaves. Suiren Shi 燧人氏 taught them how to make fire.
Fuxi Shi 伏羲氏 invented nets and traps, taught mankind how to fish and hunt and to
domesticate animals. He also invented the eight trigrams 八卦 and established the institution of
marriage. Each of his subjects was required to identify himself with a clan name (姓 xing).
Members of the same xing traced their ancestry to a common ancestor. Fuxi Shi himself
assumed the xing Feng 風. Marriages between persons of the same xing were prohibited. After
Fuxi Shi came Nüwa Shi 女媧氏, who also belonged to the Feng clan. The most notable
legendary feat during the Nüwa Shi era was an act to refine stones to patch the sky, a corner of
which had fallen. After Nüwa Shi came Shennong Shi 神農氏 (Jiang 姜 xing) who invented the
plow and plowshare and taught mankind how to cultivate grains. He also tasted different herbs
to test their properties and thus laid the basis for Chinese herbal medicine. Shennong Shi's line
of rulers were also known as Yandi 炎帝.
Chinese culture was considered to have began with the reign of Xuanyuan 軒轅 (Ji 姬
xing), who defeated Yandi (jiang 姜 xing) and ruled as Huangdi 黃帝 (Yellow Sovereign).
Huangdi allied with Yandi defeated Chiyou 蚩尤, who challenged his rule. It was during a battle
in this struggle that Huangdi's troops was said to have used the zhi’nanche 指南車 (South
pointing chariots) so as not to lose their direction while battling Chiyou in a dense fog. Chinese
tradition also attributed the invention of many elements of Chinese culture to this period.
Huangdi's consort Luozu 螺祖 domesticated the silkworm and began sericulture; his official
Cangjie 倉頡 invented Chinese characters, and various other officials invented the calendar and
reckoning of year by the heavenly stem and earthly branches, healing arts, music, mathematics,
houses, clothes, boats and chariots, mortar and pestle, bow and arrow, coins, coffins, etc.
Huangdi's grandson Zhuanxu 顓頊 succeeded him as sovereign, followed by Ku 嚳 and
Yao 堯. Instead of appointing his own son to succeed him as ruler, Yao appointed Shun (Gui 媯
xing), who was from the state of Yu 虞舜. These five were known collectively as the five
sovereigns of ancient China 五帝. It was during Yao’s reign that Houji 后 稷, one of Huangdi's
descendants, was alleged to have invented agricultural techniques.
Shun in turn turned over the realm to folk hero Yu 禹 (Si 姒 xing), noted in Chinese
tradition as having controlled the great flood after laboring thirteen years. His kingdom was
known as Xia 夏. Hereditary dynastic rule began when Yu was succeeded by his son Qi 启 as
sovereign. Since the Xia claimed descent from Huangdi, Huangdi as well as Yandi became the
attributed ancestors of all Han Chinese, who are commonly referred to as the “Descendants of
Yandi and Huangdi” 炎黃子孫. The territory and people with a common culture living in the
middle and lower Yellow basin where the Xia State had evolved were referred to as Huaxia 華夏
or Zhuxia 諸夏 (various Xia states). This term in later years became synonymous with China.
The above accounts reflect the efforts of ancient Chinese to explain how their civilization
evolved. Actually this was a synthesis of myths and traditions originating from several different
sources that had been revised, refined, combined, and rearranged into a more logical order.
The picture, which had been delineated through modern historical analysis and archaeological
research, reveals a similar sequence of events except that inventions and discoveries were of
course no longer attributed to demigods and superhuman beings.
Beginnings of Chinese Civilization: Huangdi, Yandi, and Others
Paleontological evidence showed that the human race has long existed in the territory
that is now China. 500,000 to 1,000,000 years ago, Peking man who lived in north China
already knew how to use fire and primitive tools made from stones. As time passed primitive
men learned to build shelters and to make stone weapons and otherwise improved their
material culture. Gradually as population increased and society became more complex, people
began to group themselves into different clans (xing 姓). Each xing had a recognized common
ancestor and corresponded roughly with the totem of a clan among primitive tribes. During this
period a matrilineal society existed where descent was traced through the female line. This was
demonstrated by the fact that the Chinese characters for many ancient xing usually consisted of
the “female” 女 radical plus a phonetic element. Later, as the change to a patrilineal society
occurred, there developed the shi 氏 in order to differentiate among different lineages, each with
a common male ancestor, branching out from the same xing. The shi may be derived from a
diversity of sources, such as names of states and townships, localities of residence, official
titles, personal names, occupations and trades, etc. During the ancient period several shi can
be derived from a single xing. However, only members of the nobility have the right to have a
xing and shi and the privilege was not extended to the common people.
Some five thousand years ago tribes in the middle Yellow River basin in North China
had developed their Neolithic culture to a fairly advanced state. A distinguishing feature of this
culture was the extensive use of painted pottery. Archaeologists have also denoted this as the
Yangshao Culture 仰韶文化, so-called for the locale where painted pottery shards were first
excavated. A ruler Yandi headed a group of tribes that apparently originated in the valley of the
Jiang River 姜水 (from which the group derived the clan name Jiang 姜), a branch of the Wei
River 渭水 in west central Shaanxi. Subsequently the group expanded to the territory on the
south bank of the Yellow River. Another group of tribes led by Huangdi originated in the valley of
the Ji River 姬水 (from which the group derived the clan name Ji 姬), which some scholars
located as being near the Jiang River. This group of tribes also expanded into the Henan plains,
but on both sides of the Yellow River. At first the two groups were allied, but soon began fighting
each other for dominance in the region. The Huangdi-led tribes defeated the Yandi-led group to
become the acknowledged leader of the tribal federation, which continued to expand eastward
toward the lower Yellow River and Huai River valleys, where they encountered a heterogeneous
group of tribes, the Yi 夷 led by Chiyou. Huangdi was again victorious in another series of wars
and established hegemony over the Yi also.
The Huaxia and Their Neighbors
By the twenty-first century BC the descendants of the Huangdi-led tribes, the Huaxia, led
by Yu (Si 姒 xing), established the first dynastic state in China, the Xia 夏. Although there had
been numerous references to the Xia in Chinese historical documents, there had been no
unearthed artifacts that can definitely be identified as being from this period; however, a list of
Xia rulers had long existed. Research based on archaeological and documentary evidence has
placed the beginning of the dynasty at about 2070 BC. At its height, the Xia state ruled the lower
Yellow River Valley from southern Shanxi and western Henan east to the territory where Henan,
Hebei, and Shandong met.
During the eighteenth century BC a branch of the Yi 夷 people, the Shang 商 (also
known as Yin 殷), arose in the region east of the Xia. Their leader Tang 湯 (Zi 子 xing ) led a
rebellion that displaced the last Xia ruler Jie 桀 and founded the Shang state with the capital
located at the confluence of northern Henan, southern Hebei, and eastern Shandong. By this
time the Shang had entered the Bronze Age and also had developed a system of ideographic
writing. Numerous specimens of oracle shells and bones etched with characters and dating from
the Shang period had been unearthed at the site of the Shang capital.
In twelfth century BC, Ji Fa 姬發 (also known as Wuwang 武王 [Martial king]) led an
allied army from southern Shaanxi to overthrow the Shang king Zhou 紂 and establish the Zhou
周 state. The Zhou claimed descent from Houji with the clan name Ji 姬 and hence,
descendants of Huangdi. Ji Fa and succeeding Zhou kings created a feudal order granting
numerous fiefs in the middle and lower Yellow River basin to their sons, relatives and allies, who
migrated with their retainers to these fiefdoms to establish their rule. The rulers and the nobles
as well in these fiefs each developed their own shi as identification. Due to the importance of
xing and shi in this feudal system, the Zhou court appointed an official to chronicle the royal
lineages. This marked the beginnings of Chinese genealogy.
Many people have made the claim that China has 5,000 years of written history;
however, the earliest verifiable documented date was 841 BC. At that point the power of the
Zhou kings was beginning to wane. In 771 BC an invasion by non-Han tribesmen forced the
Zhou to move its capital eastward to become the Eastern Zhou 東周. The weakening of the
Zhou royal power encouraged the various dukedoms, marquisates, earldoms, viscounties and
baronetcies to be more assertive in exercising their prerogatives. Fiefdoms increasingly paid
only nominal fealty to the Zhou royal house and sometimes not even that at all. Stronger states
began to exercise hegemony over weaker ones, and powerful principalities to devour weaker
neighbors. This period is known as the Chunqiu (Spring and Autumn 春秋) period, from the
classic Spring and Autumn Annals of the state of Lu 魯 that was edited by Confucius 孔子.
The Spring and Autumn Period lasted almost four centuries. By the fourth century BC
the number of dominant states in the Yellow River basin had been whittled down to six: Qi 齊
(Shandong), Yan 燕 (southern Liaoning, northern Hebei), Zhao 趙 (southern Hebei, southern
Shanxi), Wei 魏 (eastern Henan), Han 韓 (western Henan), and Qin 秦 (southern Shaanxi,
southwestern Gansu). Historians refer to this period as the beginning of the Era of Warring
States 戰國. It should be noted that during the Spring and Autumn and the Warring States
periods, there were also other nationalities with different cultures living in the Yellow River basin
interspersed among the Huaxia. Others lived in territories contiguous to the Yellow River basin.
During this period we find first usage of the term “Zhongguo” (middle kingdom 中國 to
differentiate the Huaxia from non-Huaxia. The application of the term has change over the
centuries and this term is now used to refer to China as a nation including all its different
nationalities.
Within the northern and western parts of the Yellow River basin were nomadic peoples
such as the Di 狄 and Rong 戎. During this period many were absorbed to become part of the
Huaxia. Others retreated northward and westward, joining their compatriots outside the
periphery of the Huaxia domains. Their descendants such as the Xiongnu 匈奴 continued to
play important roles in China's history, at times amicably and at other times with hostile intent.
South of the Yellow River basin was the Jingchu 荊 楚 (Mi 羋 xing) people, which
established the state of Chu 楚 in western Henan and northern Hubei around the beginning of
the Zhou dynasty. As early as the eighth century BC its rulers declared themselves wang (王
king), a title hitherto considered to be reserved for the Zhou rulers. The Chu state expanded
eastward down the Yangzi River basin, swallowing smaller states. At one point it also controlled
parts of the Yellow River basin, and was a threat challenging the hegemony of Huaxia
principalities.
In the lower Yangzi River basin in Jiangsu was the Yue 越, which was influenced during
the early Zhou period by Huaxia culture and evolved into the kingdom of Wu 吳. By the sixth
century BC this kingdom was challenging Chu hegemony in the region. Wu, however, was in
turn defeated and swallowed in 473 BC by the rival Yue 越 Kingdom that had evolved further
south in Zhejiang. The Yue Kingdom extended its power as far north as the southeastern part of
Shandong, but it soon declined and became absorbed by the state of Chu in 334 BC. Thus Chu
became the largest of the contending states during the Warring States period. However, the
population was relatively sparse and the economy undeveloped in many parts of this vast realm.
Southwest of the Yellow River basin in western Hubei and eastern Sichuan in the middle
reaches of the Yangzi River basin was the Ba 巴, a non-Huaxia people. Northwest of them
around the present city of Chengdu 成都 was another people, the Shu 蜀. Both peoples evolved
into states around the early Zhou period and lasted until the 4th century BC when they were
annexed by the westernmost Huaxia state Qin (pronounced Chin). Continued resistance to Qin
rule in Shu led the Qin sovereign to move 10,000 Qin families to settle among the original
inhabitants. Huaxia culture soon became dominant over the native culture; however, to this day
Sichuan is still often referred to as Shu or Ba-Shu 巴蜀.
With the introduction of more advanced technology of the Huaxia people, the Sichuan
region was able to develop its rich resources, sheltered from the incessant warfare of the Yellow
River basin. This prosperous economy was a factor enabling Qin to attain military supremacy
over its rivals. By 223 BC Qin armies had defeated Chu and then devoured the Huaxia states in
north China in quick succession to unify all of northern and central China within a Qin Empire.
Economic developments during this period led to increasing populations of artisans and
craftsmen in urban areas. Increasing commerce among the various states led to the rapid
growth of a merchant class. The incessant warfare led to political changes leading to a
breakdown of the old feudal order established by the Zhou rulers. The persistent social
upheavals broke up the nobility’s monopoly of culture and literature. Private schools became a
trendy development. The most noted was Kongzi 孔子 (Confucius) or Kong Qiu 孔丘 of the state
of Lu 鲁國. Better known as Confucius in the West, Kong taught his philosophy and theories of
governance to more than 3,000 students but was only able to apply his theories in an official
capacity only for a brief three months. A contemporary of his was Laozi 老子 (Laocius) or Li Er
李耳 (also known as Lao Dan 老聃), the alleged progenitor of Taoism. During the succeeding
Warring States period the rapid social changes led to the rise of even more schools of
philosophy included at different interpretations of the teachings of Confucianism, including that
of Meng Zi 孟子 (Mencius) or Meng Ke 孟軻, who maintained that man was born with goodness,
and Xun Zi 荀子, also known as Xun Kuang 荀況 or Xun Qing 荀卿 who emphasized that man
was born with innate evil. There were also other philosophers such as Mo Zi 墨子 (Mocius) or
Mo Di 墨翟 who advocated universal love, Zhuang Zi 莊子 or 莊周 who espoused a Taoist
school of philosophy, the Logicians 名家 who studied the distinction between name and reality
and stressed the importance of logic and debate, the yin-yang school 陰陽家 that tried to explain
natural and social phenomena by an analysis of the negative and positive forces in the universe,
and the Legalists 法家, who advocated concentrating power in the hands of the monarch. It
was the Legalist philosophy that won the favor of the Qin ruler, leading to reforms that
strengthen the Qin state and enable it to conquer its rivals.
The creation of the empire brought a unitary Chinese state into being. This remained a
concept that endured the test of time for more than two millennia despite the fragmentation of
China that occurred from time to time. With the Huaxia culture and language of the Yellow River
basin as the core, a Han Chinese culture and language evolved that was spread through
commerce, conquest and settlement to all parts of the empire and beyond. As it evolved Han
Chinese culture and language in turn was modified by different local non-Han Chinese cultures
and languages. The result was a rich and complex Han-Chinese culture and language that
exhibited great regional diversity.
The rapid changes in the political situation also blurred the distinction between xing and shi.
When the Qin brought China under one rule, he demolished the feudal fiefdom system and the
associated nobility on which the xing and shi system was based. Xing and shi merged into one
and became linked as xingshi 姓氏, meaning clan or surname, and began to be applied to
individuals regardless of status of birth.
China as an Empire
The Qin ruler Zheng 秦王政 became Qin Shi Huangdi 秦始皇帝 (First Emperor of Qin),
ruling over a unified China for the first time. He ordered construction of the Great Wall 長城 to
defend against attacks by Xiongnu 匈奴 nomads from the steppes to the north and northwest,
and also established settlements in the upper Yellow River basin by the Great Wall. In
subsequent centuries this territory between the non-Han Chinese nomads and the Chinese
agriculturists continued to be contested, with Han Chinese agricultural settlements advancing
and retreating as Han Chinese imperial power flowed and ebbed in the region.
In the south Qin armies continued to advance east and south of the Chu realms. By 214
BC Qin had annexed the domains inhabited by the Yue in southeast China ranging from
Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Fujian to Guangdong, Guangxi, and northern Vietnam. The emperor
ensured firm Han Chinese control of the fertile Zhejiang plains by displacing the Yue with
settlers from the north and forcing the Yue to move into the mountainous areas.
The Qin Empire unified the legal code and the writing system. The emperor abolished
the fief system and divided the empire into 36 prefectures. He tried to forestall opposition among
the populace by confiscating weapons and destroying books. Survivors of the old aristocracy
were moved to the Qin capital, where they could be kept under surveillance. But no sooner had
the First Emperor passed away, a peasant uprising occurred in 209 BC in Anhui. It sparked
other insurrections throughout the land and the dynasty soon fell as contending warlords fought
for supremacy. But even though the dynasty was short-lived, its fame spread to India and
Europe and from the name Qin is derived the term China in various forms in different
languages.
Liu Bang 劉邦 emerged the victor in the ensuing civil wars. He became the first emperor
of the Western or Former Han 西漢, 前漢 dynasty, which ruled for two centuries until Wang
Mang 王莽 usurped the throne and established the short-lived Xin 新 dynasty. After a peasant
rebellion overthrew Wang, a distant relative of the Han royal family became the first emperor of
the Eastern or Latter Han 東漢, 後漢 dynasty.
Both Han dynasties implemented an aggressive expansionist policy. During its early
years the Han reestablished the empire by reabsorbing the territories inhabited by the Yue,
which had broken away upon the fall of the Qin Empire to become the kingdoms of Dong'ou 東
甌 and Minyue 閩越 in Fujian and Nanyue 南越 in Guangdong-Guangxi-northern Vietnam
(Lingnan 嶺南 [South of the mountain range]). In order to control the restless Yue in Fujian, the
court forced them to move to the region between the Yangzi and the Huai rivers. These forced
migrations of the Yue in Zhejiang during Qin and in Fujian during Han as compared to the fate
of the Yue in the Lingnan region, who continued to live in the region, probably help explain
some of the differences in the subsequent development of the culture and language in Lingnan,
Fujian, and Zhejiang despite their original commonality as Yue domains.
The Han also struck out aggressively beyond the periphery of the empire and extended
Chinese power deep into Korea, Central Asia, and southwest China. A Chinese envoy even
reached the Near East during the 1st century AD.
During most of this period, the Xiongnu nomads posed as an ever-present threat on the
empire’s northern border. By the 1st century AD a successful combination of Han military
actions and diplomacy had caused a split among the Xiongnu, with one group submitting to Han
rule and part of the remainder migrating westward into the steppes of Central Asia, where they
became the forebears of the Huns that became the scourge of the Roman Empire beginning
with the 4th century AD.
The memory of Han imperial power led the name Han 漢人 to be used during the late
6th century to differentiate between the people already living in the mid- and lower Yellow River
basin that was the heartland of the Han empire from the various other peoples entering from
China’s border areas and settling in the basin. The term was later applied to the population from
China that used the Chinese language and observed Chinese cultural practices.
Within the empire during the 2nd century BC the emperor decreed that Confucianism
was the official state philosophy. Buddhism was introduced into China by way of central Asia
during the 1st century AD. In parallel to these developments Taoism also evolved into a popular
religion by the 2nd century during the Eastern Han dynasty.
North-South Division: The First Great Southward Migration
By the 2nd century AD debilitating political struggles in the Han court accompanied by a
great peasant rebellion had led to the collapse of the imperial authority. Contending warlords
each carved out territories to rule and exploit. After three decades of internecine warfare the
contending groups coalesced into three kingdoms 三 國 —Wei 魏 based in the Yellow River
basin, Shu 蜀 centered on Sichuan, and Wu 吳 in the middle and lower Yangzi River basin.
Countless generations have read or listened to tales from Romance of the Three Kingdoms
recounting the exploits of "heroes" such as Guan Gong 關公 and Zhuge Liang 諸葛亮, and
"villains" such as Cao Cao 曹操 from this period. However, the political chaos brought nothing
but misery and suffering for the general population.
During this troubled period many tried to escape from the political chaos in the Yellow
River basin. Many went to the state of Wu, which was easily accessible by land and water
routes, to settle south of the Yangzi River valley, some even going on as far as Fujian. Conflicts
broke out as the newcomers encroached upon the domains of the Shanyue 山越, who appeared
to be descendants of the Yue, who had been forced to migrate in previous centuries together
with an admixture of Han Chinese. The Shanyue resistance was broken and many became
absorbed as part of the Han Chinese.
After six decades of division China was finally reunified in 280 under the Western Jin 西
晉 dynasty. Unification did not last long. Two decades later, North China was again torn apart by
a fratricidal struggle among eight princes 八王之亂. Soon, non-Han Chinese peoples, who had
surrendered to the imperial government during previous dynasties and were forced to settle
within the Great Wall, saw their opportunity and rose in rebellion, carving out kingdoms for
themselves in the process. The north saw the rise and fall of at least sixteen short-lived
principalities established by no less than five different ethnic nationalities 五胡十六國. When the
Jin emperor became captive of one of the groups, another prince ascended the throne in
Jiankang 建康 (now Nanjing) in the Yangzi River valley in 317 to establish the Eastern Jin 東晉
dynasty.
The political chaos in north China during more than a century and a half beginning with
307 AD gave impetus to the southward movement of the Chinese in several waves and involved
the movement of about 2,000,000 people. The largest number settled in the Huai and lower
Yangzi river valleys, while a smaller number moved into the upper and middle Yangzi river
basin. Fujian tradition alleged that in 308 AD eight clans led by the gentry migrated from Henan
to settle in Fujian. Genealogies of Hakka-speaking clans also claimed during this period their
forebears began their trek from Henan province to the Huai River basin.
The refugees from the north and their descendants were a minority comprising only
about a sixth of the total population in the south; however, due to the fact that among them were
members of the ruling aristocracy and bureaucrats as well as the educated elite, their influence
on the development of the region was much greater than their proportion would have indicated.
Moreover, the north-south split that lasted 270 years forced them to reconcile themselves to the
fact that the south had become their permanent home and ensured that their influence was
sustained for a longer period than that which occurred during the period of the Three Kingdoms.
Han Chinese culture and language became firmly established in the Yangzi River Valley as the
south was ruled by a succession of Han Chinese dynasties of short duration that succeeded the
Eastern Jin—Song 宋, Qi 齊, Liang 梁, and Chen 陳. This Han culture and language was also
enriched by absorbing elements of culture and language of the local people.
In the meanwhile the Xianbei 鮮卑, a non-Han people who had entered the Yellow River
basin from northeast China, unified northern China by the 5th century and established the
Northern Wei 北魏 dynasty. Northern Wei later split into Eastern and Western Wei 東魏, 西魏,
which were succeeded respectively by the Northern Qi 北齊 and Northern Zhou 北周 dynasties.
During the division between north and south that lasted more than two centuries the
many non-Han peoples who had moved into the Yellow River basin adopted Han Chinese
customs and the language. Many changed to Han surnames. For example after the Xianbei
established the Northern Wei dynasty, the emperor ordered his people to change their multisyllabic surnames to Han surnames, 144 in all.
The cultures and languages of the various diverse nationalities in the Yellow River basin
contributed materially to the further development of Han culture and language. The peoples
eventually became part of the Han Chinese and some played important roles in the subsequent
history of China. Yang Jian 楊堅, who usurped the Northern Zhou throne during the late 6th
century to found the Sui 隋 dynasty that reunified China, had an empress of Xianbei descent. Li
Yuan 李淵, founder of the Tang dynasty that succeeded the Sui, was also part Han Chinese and
part Xianbei.
Reunified China
After the part-Han Chinese and part Xianbei son of Yang Jian succeeded to the Sui
throne, he embarked on grandiose projects, such as construction of the Grand Canal 大運河,
which connects north China with the Yangzi basin. These projects taxed the resources of the
empire. Similar to the Qin Empire earlier, corruption and harsh oppressive rule soon brought
about peasant uprisings that overthrew the dynasty as the different groups contended for control
of the empire. Li Yuan, an official serving the Sui, led forces that ultimately unified the nation to
establish the Tang dynasty in 618 AD. Like the Han, the Tang expanded Chinese power to
Central Asia, Korea, Vietnam, and southwest China.
During this period a lively trade developed with central Asia and the Near East via the
Silk Road. A maritime silk route beginning from Chinese ports and skirting Southeast Asia and
the Indian Peninsula to sail to the Near East also developed. The contacts with other cultures
greatly enriched Han Chinese culture. For example, music, dance, and sculpture from central
Asia exerted a great influence on Han Chinese arts. Musical instruments such as the pipa
became part of Han Chinese musical tradition. In religion, around the 7th century, Islam was
introduced both by land and the maritime route.
During this period China was a magnet attracting the peoples in surrounding countries
and many served the emperor as officials. The Sui and Tang courts also emulated the example
of the Han emperors by allowing non-Han peoples submitting to the emperor to settle on lands
northeast, north, and west of the periphery of the Yellow River basin.
It was in Hebei near the present Beijing that a great rebellion led by An Lushan 安禄山
broke out in 755 AD. The insurrection ravaged north China, forcing the imperial court to flee to
Sichuan and almost toppled the dynasty. It was finally suppressed with the aid of Uighur 回鶻
troops. Imperial power was greatly weakened after the rebellion and various military governors
stationed at the frontiers began to assume greater powers and fought each other for hegemony
and control.
On the west the empire was invaded frequently by the Tubo 吐蕃, a Tibetan people,
while in the southwest in the present Yunnan, the Nanzhao 南詔 state formed during the 8th
century by a coalition of non-Han Chinese nationalities led by the ancestors of the Bai
nationality 白族, also made numerous harassing raids into China. On these incursions the
invaders often coerced numbers of the local population to return with them, a situation that in a
perverse manner facilitated the transmission of Han Chinese culture and language among these
non-Han Chinese peoples. Accurate counts of the Han Chinese captives were unavailable, but
one authority estimated that some 200,000 to 300,000 Han Chinese moved into Yunnan by this
and other means during the Tang.
Fragmented China: The Second Great Southward Migration
Tang Imperial rule finally collapsed in face of peasant uprisings led by Wang Xianzhi 王
仙芝 and Huang Chao 黄巢 during the 9th century. During the subsequent half century, five
short dynasties rose and fell in the imperial capital in Henan--Later Liang 後梁, Later Tang 後唐,
Later Jin 後晉, Later Han 後漢, and Later Zhou 後周. The rulers of the second to fourth
dynasties belonged to the Turkish Shatuo 沙陀 nationality. During this period imperial rule
extended only to the middle and lower Yellow River basin as the remainder of China was
divided among independent kingdoms. Thus the period is known as Five Dynasties and Ten
States 五代十國. In the south, northern Vietnam, which had been a Chinese province since the
Han dynasty, broke away from China under Ngo Quyen 吳權 to form an independent kingdom in
939.
During this period of political disintegration in China the Qidan 契丹 nationality from
northeast China (Manchuria) invaded and seized parts of northern Shanxi and northern Hebei in
the periphery of the Yellow River basin to establish the state of Liao 遼, and the Tanguts 唐古突,
a Tibetan people, founded the state of Xixia 西夏 in what is now Ningxia in northwest China.
During the many wars between both regimes and the Han Chinese in the Yellow River basin,
they took captives back to their respective states where they lived among the native population
and served as conduits introducing Han Chinese culture and language. Many Qidans also
moved from their homes in northeast China to settle among the more numerous Han Chinese
populations in north China in order to maintain control in the region. These settlements resulted
in the infusion of new elements into the makeup of the Han Chinese nationality.
The political instability in the Yellow River basin gave impetus to another great
southward migration. The greater number settled in the middle and lower Yangzi river basin
south of the river. A smaller number went southwest into Sichuan; others entered Fujian. A
small minority even reached the Lingnan region, mostly in northeastern and northern
Guangdong and northern Guangxi.
According to tradition during the 9th century leaders belonging to the Wang clan of
Henan had led an estimated 20,000 to 30,000 into Fujian, where Wang Shenzhi 王審知
subsequently established the state of Min 閩, one of the Ten Kingdoms during the period of the
Five Dynasties. Many Fujian genealogies traced the entry of their progenitors into Fujian to this
migration. The population growth and economic development in the region accelerated during
this period. Genealogies of Hakka clans also allege that the second stage of their southward
migration took place during this period to Ganzhou 贛州 in southern Jiangxi and Tingzhou 汀州
in southwestern Fujian. According to tradition Shibi 石壁 (Stone wall) Village in Ninghua 寧化
County, Fujian was the stopping place for Hakkas migrating from the north. Hakkas claim direct
descent from Han-Chinese of Henan in the Yellow River Basin; however, scholars believe that
the present Hakka population was the result of unions of migrants from the north and native
peoples of the south, especially the She 畬.
With the continued development of the relatively more peaceful south, the economic
center of the empire shifted to the Yangzi River basin. Due to the greater development of South
China beginning with the Tang dynasty, southern Chinese preferred to call themselves people
of Tang 唐人.
Invasions from the North and Northeast: The Third Great Southward Migration
Zhao Kuangyin 趙匡胤, a general serving the Later Zhou emperor, staged a mutiny and
usurped the throne in 960 to establish the Northern Song 北宋 dynasty. The Song reunified
China and under the Song emperors there were great advances in the arts and literature. Often
leading literati took an interest in compiling genealogies, and one of the most frequently used
formats was devised by Ouyang Xiu 歐陽修 from this period. The Song Empire, however, was
militarily weak and was constantly under military pressure from the Liao in the north and Xixia in
the northwest. During the 12th century another people, the Nüzhen 女真, came from the
northeast to conquer the Liao and establish the Jin 金 empire. The Jin then invaded and seized
Song territory, capturing the emperor and his father, the abdicated emperor, in 1126. The Jin
Empire took them and other Han Chinese captives back to their homeland in Northeast China.
At the same time, about two-thirds of the Nüzhen tribes moved into North China. Many
eventually adopted Han Chinese culture and in turn influenced the development of the Han
Chinese population of the middle and lower Yellow River basin.
In the meantime the Song court under a prince of the royal family retreated from north
China and established the Southern Song 南宋 dynasty in 1137, with its capital in Lin'an 臨安
(now Hangzhou 杭州), leaving the Jin Empire in control of North China.
During the thirteenth century, the Mongols 蒙古 came from the steppes to vanquish the
Xixia and Jin states. Around 1246 Tibet surrendered to the Mongols and the land became a
vassal of the Mongol Yuan Empire, initiating a relationship that was maintained by succeeding
regimes in China. In 1254 the Mongols annexed the state of Houli 後理 as Yunnan Province.
Subsequently military garrisons were sent to establish Han Chinese settlements. The Mongols
then attacked the Song Empire, pursuing the Song court until its final defeat in Guangdong in
1279. China became united again as part of the Yuan 元 Empire under the Mongols.
The 150 years that started with the Nüchen and Mongol invasions and ended with the
Mongol conquest saw the third great southward migration of the Han Chinese. The economic
development of first central, and then south China, accelerated as migrants settled in these
regions. Genealogies of clans in Guangdong's Pearl River Delta tell of the migration of their
forebears from Zhuji Xiang 珠璣巷 in Nanxiong 南雄, northern Guangdong, toward the latter part
of the Southern Song dynasty. The account was not chronicled in any historical works; however,
Nanxiong lay astride the main route from the Yangzi River basin to the Pearl River Delta and
would have been one of the routes taken by migrants coming from the north via the land route.
During this same period migrants from southern Fujian also continued to migrate to the
Chaozhou 潮州 region in northeastern Guangdong, which became also a springboard for further
migrations along the coast to southern Guangdong and Hainan Island. Further inland, the
Hakka dialect group, mostly from Tingzhou, Fujian, along with some from southern Jiangxi
moved into the mountainous areas of northern Guangdong.
The Mongols extended their rule over a vast empire extending from the Pacific to
eastern Europe, thus facilitating travel and trade. Many Mongols moved into China, mostly in the
north and northeast China as parts of garrisons or as officials. Han Chinese went deep into
central Asia on official business while people from Central Asia and Europe came to China. One
of the best-known Europeans was Marco Polo, who came to China during the 13th century with
his father, a Venetian merchant. After his return to Europe, he wrote an account extolling the
power and wealth of the Chinese empire that played an important role arousing the curiosity of
Europeans concerning China. However, travelers to China coming from Central Asia were much
more numerous than those from Europe and included military personnel, merchants,
professionals, craftsmen, and others. A number served in the Yuan bureaucracy or the military.
These foreigners were classified as Semu 色目, who were considered to rank below the
Mongols but above the Han Chinese in social status. Many who did not come with families
married Han Chinese, thus introducing another ingredient into the diversity of the Chinese
people.
Restoration of Han Chinese Rule
The Mongols ruled China for less than a century before they were ousted by Han
Chinese uprisings. Although the last Yuan emperor fled to Mongolia in 1368, many Mongols and
people of the Semu class remained in China. To this group was added Uighurs, who had been
ordered to move from northwestern China into interior China. The Ming imperial government
banned endogamous marriages among these peoples in order to hasten their assimilation into
the Han Chinese population. In the case of the Semu and the Uighurs, even though they had
intermarried with Han Chinese and adopted Chinese customs and their common language, they
still held on to their Islamic beliefs. This fact helped them to maintain a group identity that led to
the formation of the Hui 回 or Chinese Moslems, as distinct from the pork-eating Han Chinese.
During the years of fighting that led to the ouster of the Mongols and the ascendancy of
the Ming dynasty, large areas had been devastated and depopulated. The first Ming emperor
mandated numerous moves from designated regions to resettle the war-ravaged areas. The
Ming emperor also ordered military personnel and their dependents to establish garrisons and
agricultural settlements in peripheral areas of the empire on the northeast, northwest, and
southwest where there were large populations of non-Han nationalities. These military
personnel served to spearhead the permanent settlement of Han Chinese in these regions. One
authority estimated that migrations during early Ming involved an estimated six million among
the civilian population and 4.4 million military personnel and their dependents, about one out of
every six Chinese.
Ming was a period with great economic development in central and south China. By now
Han Chinese had occupied most of the river valleys and were in the process of settling more
mountainous areas in south central China. Much of the native populations in these areas were
assimilated as part of the Han Chinese. Guizhou, Yunnan, and other border areas with
numerous non-Han Chinese nationalities were ruled indirectly through native chieftains
recognized by the imperial court, with control maintained by establishing military agricultural
settlements
For a brief period during the fifteenth century China also displayed its maritime power
when Admiral Zheng He 鄭和 led seven naval expeditions to Southeast Asia, South Asia, and
once as far as East Africa, but that effort soon petered out. Instead the Portuguese became the
first Europeans to reach China via the maritime route during the 16th century. A few Catholic
missionaries soon followed and entered China to proselyte converts to Christianity.
By this time Ming power was on the decline. The Manchu, another non-Han Chinese
people in northeast China, was becoming a threat at the border. But before the Manchu could
move against the Ming, peasant rebellions led by Li Zicheng 李自成 and Zhang Xianzhong 張獻
忠 led to the collapse of Ming rule. Peking, the Ming capital, fell to Li, and the Ming emperor
committed suicide, hanging himself on the hill north of the Forbidden City.
The Last Empire
Wu Sangui 吳三桂, a Ming general guarding the frontier, invited the Manchu armies to
enter China to quell the peasant insurrections. Once admitted, the Manchu armies conquered
the country and ruled it as part of their Qing 清 empire. Qing armies extended imperial power
into Vietnam, Tibet, Central Asia, Mongolia, Siberia, and Korea, all of which became tributary
states.
During the Manchu advance Ming loyalists on the coast under Zheng Chenggong 鄭成功
(popularly known as Koxinga 國姓爺) retreated across the Taiwan Straits, ousted the Dutch
from Taiwan, and settled on the island, using it as a base to launch attacks against the
Manchus. By the time Qing forces seized control of Taiwan in 1661, about 100,000 Han
Chinese were living in Taiwan. Despite several imperial edicts banning Chinese from the island,
land hungry peasants from the China mainland continued to land there so that by 1811 the
island population had grown to almost two million. Most of the settlers came from southern
Fujian, but there was also a small number of Hakkas from Guangdong.
Meanwhile on the mainland, the population in Sichuan had been decimated first by the
peasant uprisings, followed by the fighting accompanying the Manchu conquest, and finally
more fighting caused by a major rebellion against Qing rule. The Qing Court then encouraged
migration from Hubei, Hunan, Guangdong, Fujian, and Jiangxi to replenish the population.
After the Qing suppressed the opposition, the period of peace allowed the economy to
develop and prosper. The population increased. As the population pressure in the river valleys
increased, people began to settle in the mountainous areas of the south and southwest. During
the Ming many of these regions with other nationalities had been governed indirectly as
feudatories by tribal chieftains recognized by the imperial court. As more Han Chinese settled in
these areas, feudatories were abolished and direct Han-Chinese administration established,
thus completing the process of integration into the empire. Most feudatories in the south and
southwest were abolished in the early Qing period during the 18th century. Many members of
the non-Han nationalities became sinicized. However, the process was never completed, for
even today, Guizhou and Yunnan are provinces with the greatest number of non-Han
nationalities.
During this period the European nations had been actively seeking to expand trade with
China. However, the imperial government rebuffed their efforts and severely limited foreign
trade. When the empire began to decline during the 19th century, the West led by England
probed for ways to force open the China market. When China tried to ban the opium trade,
England used that as a pretext to declare war on China. During the First Opium War (1839-42),
England was victorious and China ceded Hong Kong to England as its colony. In the Second
Opium War (1856-60), China was again defeated and the English took Kowloon. Thus China’s
doors were forced open to goods and ideas from the West, leading to a rapid breakdown of
China’s traditional society. The perceived weakening of imperial rule led to a rash of rebellions,
the biggest of which was the Taiping Rebellion 太平天國 of 1851, which devastated the lower
Yangzi basin before it was suppressed with the support of the Western powers.
The various Western powers, joined later by Japan, continued to expand their
encroachments on China's sovereignty, exacting special privileges from a weak and supine
nation and seizing Chinese dependencies such as Annam and Korea. In response to these
threats to the empire the Qing government took measures to assert greater control over China’s
territory. In the northwest, the Qing government reestablished military agricultural settlements.
In 1883 Xinjiang (New frontier) became a province of China. In the aftermath of China’s defeat
in the Sino-Japanese War of 1895, Japan seized Taiwan, which had been a Chinese province a
few years earlier in 1887.
Han Chinese settlement of the northern frontiers was quietly proceeding during the late
Qing and the Republican era. Since early Qing, Han Chinese had been banned from settling in
Mongolia and Manchuria. However, toward the end of the 19th century, alarmed by foreign
encroachments on Chinese territory, the Qing government lifted the ban and there was a rapid
influx of settlers, mostly from Shandong into Manchuria, which became three provinces—
Fengtian 奉天 (name changed to Liaoning 遼寧 in 1929), Jilin 吉林, and Heilongjiang 黑龍江 in
1907. During the same period there was also a steady flow of settlers into Inner Mongolia that
continued through the first decades of the twentieth century.
As the empire continued to disintegrate, the desire for reform and revolution increased.
There was much sympathy among Chinese overseas for change and many provided support for
reformers and revolutionaries. In 1911 revolutionary forces overthrew the now discredited
imperial system and established a republic modeled after Western concepts. Sun Yat-sen 孫逸
仙, 孫文, 孫中山 became its provisional president.
The Republic
The change from an autocratic imperialist system to a republic proved to be a difficult
task. Sun Yat-sen had to yield the presidency to Yuan Shikai 袁世凱 soon after the founding of
the Republic of China 中華民國. The nation soon lapsed into civil war with warlords ruling
different parts of the country. Sun Yat-sen and the Nationalist Party or Kuomintang 中國國民黨
that he led established a government in Guangdong in opposition to the national government in
Beijing. In 1923 the Kuomintang reorganized, established an alliance with the USSR, and a
working relationship with the Chinese Communist Party. In 1926 the Kuomintang regime in
Guangdong launched a Northern Expedition 北伐 to unify the country. By 1927 the Kuomintang
had established a national government in Nanjing led by Chiang Kai-shek.
Chiang broke with the Communists and launched a bloody purge. China relapsed into
civil war, this time between the Kuomintang and the Communists. It was during this civil war that
the Communist army escaping from a Kuomintang encirclement in Jiangxi, launched the famous
“Long March” 長征 of 1934-35 that took it over a circuitous route more than six thousand miles
by way of southwestern China to arrive in northern Shaanxi in the Yellow River basin.
Meanwhile, the Kuomintang government created six new provinces in 1928 to better
control the border regions. Inner Mongolia was split into Rehe 熱河, Chahar 察哈爾, Suiyuan 綏
遠, and Ningxia 寧夏 provinces. Qinghai 青海 and Xikang 西康 provinces were established at
the northern and eastern peripheries of the Tibetan Plateau, respectively. Soon afterward, the
Japanese army occupied northeast China in 1931 and created a puppet state Manchukuo
headed by the ex-emperor of the Qing dynasty. Japan continued to seize slices of Chinese
territory throughout the 1930s until an undeclared general war between China and Japan broke
out in 1937. China suffered more than 30 million casualties during the eight years of the
subsequent War of Resistance against Japan 抗日戰爭. During this conflict, runaway inflation in
the economy and rampant corruption in government greatly weakened Kuomintang rule.
After Japan was defeated, Taiwan reverted to Chinese rule as a province. Meanwhile,
civil war broke out again between the Chinese Communists and the Kuomintang government.
The Communists gained the upper hand and established the People's Republic of China 中華人
民共和國 in 1949, while the defeated Kuomintang government retreated to Taiwan, where it still
exists today.
The People’s Republic made adjustments in the provincial–level administrative divisions.
Beijing (1949), Tianjin (1949), Shanghai (1949), and later Chongqing (1997) became
municipalities reporting directly to the central government, similarly to the provinces.
Autonomous regions were created in provinces with large non-Han populations. In 1947, before
the founding of the People’s Republic, Rehe, Chahar, and Suiyuan provinces were combined to
become the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. In 1955 Xikang was abolished and
administration of its territory split between Sichuan and Tibet. Xinjiang (1955), Ningxia (1958),
Guangxi (1958), and Tibet (1965) each became autonomous regions. In 1988 Hainan became a
separate province. After Hong Kong and Macao returned to Chinese rule in 1997 and 1999,
respectively, they each became special administrative regions (S.A.R.).
Concluding Words
The Han Chinese traces its origins about 4,000 years ago to tribes led by Huangdi and
living in the middle Yellow River basin. These tribes, which later became known as the Huaxia,
grew in numbers and strength. They and their allies established dominance over the middle and
the lower Yellow River valley, where they formed states with related languages and cultures that
often waged war with one another. Chu, one of these states, later expanded into the Huai and
the middle and lower Yangzi River valleys. During the 3rd BC, the state of Qin conquered the
various principalities to establish an empire over most of what is China today, east of Tibet,
Qinghai, and Xinjiang. Its domains also included lands to the south inhabited by non-Sinitic
peoples. The Qin Empire was short-lived, but the continuation of an empire under the
succeeding Han dynasty established conditions for the amalgamation of the diverse Sinitic
peoples and cultures as the Han people and culture, centering on north China.
During the succeeding centuries, the composition of the population was ever changing
as Han settlers expanded outward from the Yellow River basin. Some of the movements were
to the west, north and northeast, but the main thrust was southward into central and south
China. At times the migrations were mandated by the government, but during several historical
periods the southward movement was greatly accelerated by the intrusion of hostile non-Han
peoples from the north into the Yellow River basin. Many of the existing population were forced
to seek refuge in central and south China, thus greatly accelerating the economic development
and sinicization of these regions. Local non-Han groups eventually assimilated as part of the
Han Chinese, but the interaction of refugees and indigenous people also were factors leading to
the development of major regional dialects and culture with strong regional characteristics
typical of southeast China today. Similarly in north China the non-Han Chinese intruders
eventually became part of the Han Chinese people, but they also left their marks on Han
Chinese language and culture.
The different historical processes working in various regions of the vast country show up
also in the hereditary makeup of Chinese from different regions. Samplings show great
differences in the prevalent blood types (A, B, or O) among Han Chinese north and south of a
line drawn along the Wuyi Mountains 武夷山 in the south and another drawn along the Nan Ling
南嶺 Range in the north. Type O is prevalent south of Wuyi Mountains in Fujian, and also in
Taiwan, Guangdong, Hong Kong, Macau, Guangxi, and Hainan. Type A and type B blood are
more frequently found in the Chang (Yangzi) River basin between Wuyi Mountains and the Nan
Ling Range and in the Yellow River basin north of the Nan Ling Range, respectively. There are
also obvious differences between the physical characteristics of typical northern and southern
Chinese. All this indicates that Han Chinese are not a homogeneous racial group. However, a
common language and culture despite many regional variations acts as the principal fabric
bonding them together with a common national identity for two millennia. These are the similar
factors as those acting in other modern nations such as the U.S.A., Russia, and Canada with
diverse populations.
Him Mark Lai
April 7, 2008
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