Many people like to call people from Jiangxi “old cousin”. What’s the origin?

Suppose three strangers waiting for a bus get together to chat. A said: "I'm from Jiangxi, where are you from?". When B heard this, he was very happy and immediately replied: "You are from Jiangxi and I am from Hubei. Hello, dear cousin. Where are you going?" When A heard the answer, he also became energetic and hurriedly Said: "I'm from Hubei, I'm going...".

In this way, A, a native of Jiangxi, and B, a native of Hubei, started chatting enthusiastically. And C, who is neither from Jiangxi nor Hubei, was left alone. C thinks it’s strange. We are strangers to each other. How can we talk about who we are, and they chat so enthusiastically, and even call “old cousin” to become relatives?

This is a common joke on the Internet. I believe many people will be as confused as C in this story, right? Why does this person from Hubei call the person from Jiangxi "old cousin"? What does old watch mean?

Speaking of this old cousin, as a Sichuan native, the author is still very familiar with it.

I guess many people will have this experience: When I was young, I went to the street with my family. On the street, whenever someone who looked familiar said hello to my mother, my mother would respond enthusiastically. . At this time, you who are standing by will know that you have to listen to your mother's "long talk" with others.

At this time, if your mother hears someone talking about this person or someone in this person's family who is somewhat related to your family, she will immediately change her name to "old cousin". Of course, when we chat, we become more energetic.

From the above example, we can see that "old cousin" is a title between people who are related. So why do people from Hubei who don’t know each other call people from Jiangxi “old cousin”? These two strangers who don't even know each other's names are not relatives, so why do they have to "recognize their relationship randomly"?

The reason is actually very simple. Everything originated from a large-scale immigration activity in the late Yuan and early Ming dynasties. Historically, it was called "Jiangxi Filling in Huguang".

As the name suggests, "Jiangxi filling Huguang" means "filling" most people in Jiangxi into the Huguang area. So why are so many Jiangxi people moving to the Huguang area?

We know that China has been a large agricultural country since ancient times. For farmers, land is what they eat, and they generally will not leave their fields easily. Moreover, in order to develop the economy and stabilize society, the rulers did not allow people to migrate, let alone large-scale inter-provincial migration. Which emperor would do such a thing under no special circumstances? This is purely to make yourself unhappy when you have nothing to do.

But as we just said, that was under no special circumstances. The end of the Yuan Dynasty and the beginning of the Ming Dynasty were not a peaceful era.

At that time, due to the brutal exploitation by the ruling class of the Yuan Dynasty, the taxes that the people had to bear became increasingly heavier. Coupled with the continuous occurrence of natural disasters, farmers who already do not have enough to eat are even worse. At this time, peasant uprisings broke out one after another in various places.

People in Jiangxi have also suffered greatly. Because they were unable to pay taxes on time and to avoid the war, a large number of farmers began to migrate to the Huguang area where the situation was relatively better. At that time, the ruling class of the Yuan Dynasty had too much to take care of themselves, so naturally they had no time to take care of this migration, which could be called a refugee.

In addition to the spontaneous migration of the people, there are also forced migrations by the government.

After the establishment of the Ming Dynasty, in order to alleviate the depression caused by the war and promote economic development, the rulers ordered people from the Jiangxi area to migrate to Huguang on a large scale.

At this time, the population of Huguang area decreased a lot. Most of them followed Marshal Ming Yuzhen of the Red Scarf Army to Sichuan, and some were killed in the war.

Although some people in Jiangxi have moved away, there are still a considerable number of people left. You know, during the Song Dynasty, Ganzhou in Jiangxi was already one of the 36 famous cities. After several generations of development, the population has also grown to a considerable number. So Jiangxi is not only close, but also has a lot of people. If we don’t move from here, where should we move from?

The book "History of Chinese Immigration Volume 5: Ming Dynasty" records that "immigrants from Jiangxi account for about 74%."

It can be seen that most people in Hubei migrated from Jiangxi. So most of the people in Hubei now can be considered the descendants of the people in Jiangxi in the past. Therefore, it is not surprising that people from Hubei call people from Jiangxi "Laobiao".

In fact, although there are few examples of large-scale population migration in our country’s history, there are still some. For example, we are familiar with the Anshi Rebellion and the Jingkang Incident. After these two events, large numbers of northern people migrated southward. People who migrated south brought technology, population, etc. to the originally barren Yangtze River Basin area, promoting the development of the southern economy.

Similarly, Jiangxi people who moved to the Huguang area also took root there, promoting the development of local agriculture and commodity economy, and making their own contributions to the development of the Yangtze River Basin.