Excuse me, what exactly does "westward" mean? Stories with sources are the best.

"Walking West" is an ancient Shanxi folk song, which is said to have been circulated for one or two hundred years. This song can be sung not only by Shanxi people, but also by many people in neighboring Inner Mongolia, Shaanxi and even Ningxia, Qinghai and Gansu.

There's an old saying in China called "different sounds in ten miles", which says that folk songs have strong regional characteristics. The reason why people in many places in the northwest can sing "Walking to the West" is probably because many Shanxi people have been to these places at that time. Some people have been singing this song for a long time and the locals have learned it. Baotou is now one of the largest cities in Inner Mongolia grassland, with a population of over 2 million. More than a hundred years ago, this was just a small village called baoketu. Baotou people said that because Shanxi people came here to do business, they gradually formed the embryonic form of Baotou City today. Now there is a saying in Baotou that "there is revival and prosperity first, and then there is Baotou". Fusheng Palace is the name of an enterprise opened by a businessman named Joe in Shanxi more than 0/00 years ago. Many local chronicles of Shanxi, Ming and Qing dynasties also mentioned the experiences of Shanxi people who made a living in the northwest at that time. Because there are too many people with this experience, it has become a custom in some places.

Taigu County Records records that people in Taigu County are "good at making a living outside the farm, and it is common to take Wan Li Road".

"Yu County Records" says that "Jia often works in a distant place, though thousands of miles away".

"Shouyang County Records" said that the villagers "business in the south of the wild goose, and the north of the country is also half of it."

Interview with Professor Liang of Beijing Technology and Business University.

Q: When did Shanxi people go west?

A: It probably started in the middle of the Ming Dynasty, so the deadline is probably the end of the Qing Dynasty, and the climax should be the end of the Ming Dynasty and the beginning of the Qing Dynasty, when the number is the largest.

Q: What does it mean to go west?

A: It should have lasted for nearly 300 years, and it should be said that there are two situations when going west. One situation was that Shanxi had a large population at that time and life was difficult. So what? Population migration, this is a part of people. Other people were in Inner Mongolia because of the need of frontier defense at that time, so Shanxi businessmen developed in the middle of Ming Dynasty because of the need of frontier defense in Inner Mongolia. Then some people went to the west to meet this requirement, to develop commercial trade outside the mouth, and even to later banks. Therefore, the westward movement is actually a part of China immigrants.

Nowadays, with the improvement of living standards, people who used to go out from Xikou have embarked on the road of seeking roots to worship their ancestors! In Hequ County, Shanxi Province, the only way to the west is "Xikou Gudu". The folk songs of Xikou era have also spread to this day, called "Errentai". Listening to a song of two-person platform marching westward, it is not difficult to understand the sadness when marching westward!