The Study On Minorities' National Identity Of He Huang Min And Tao Regions During Ming And Qin Dynasties

He region (Linxia hui Autonomous Prefecture today), Huang region(Xining city of Qinhai today), Min region (Min county of Gansu province today), Tao region(Lintan county of Gansu province today) are located in the cultural interchange of Han, Tibetan and Hui, and has been a multi-ethnic inhibition ever since the ancient time. Although it has been under the military control of the central government since Qin Dynasty, the national identification of the minorities has experienced a long and tortuous historical process. The establishment of He, Huang, Min, and Tao military garrison along with the multi-ethnic management mechanism contributed to the transformation of minorities' sense of belonging from a tribal to a state. This transformation was completed during Ming and Qing Dynasties. In addition, the economy developed from initially an inter-tribal trade, under drove of the tea-horse trade and frontier army, to a district economy and finally nationwide. The cultural belonging and identification of minorities was thus strengthened.This paper analyzes the national and cultural identification process of minorities of He, Huang, Min, and Tao region during Ming and Qing Dynasties. Based on the previous results of this subject, this paper is developed from the perspectives of history, ethnology, sociology and economics with the support of historical documents, county annals and some investigation materials.This paper has four parts. The first part is the introduction which discusses the background and the previous research results of the problem. The remaining is divided to three chapters. The first chapter introduces the natural environments and natural resources of He, Huang, Min, and Tao regions as well as the military and political constructions before Ming and Qing Dynasties. The second and the third chapters forms the third part of the paper, which analyzes the national identification of minorities of those regions and political and military construction during the Ming and Qing Dynasties. The last part of the paper discusses the influence of economic transformation to the identification process during Ming and Qing Dynasties.