Immigration And Local Development In Southwest Guizhou In Ming And Qing Dynasties

The thesis mainly intends to explore the development patterns of the mountainous areas and the reaction after the collision of the mountainous culture and the plain culture by studying the migration activities in the southwest part of Guizhou province in Qing Dynasty and Ming Dynasty.The thesis can be divided into five chapters and it lasts about more than fifty thousand Chinese characters.As the area is located in the frontier region,the development level of the southwest part of Guizhou province has lagged behind the development of central China since a long time ago in the history.However,it has been developing in its unique way,full of its ethnic and regional characteristics,and this type of regional characteristic can bring forth gorgeous spark after its collision with the culture of central China.In the earlier Ming Dynasty,the government established garrisons here and dispatched the garrison troops to cultivate the land.For this reason,a large number of soldiers came here together with their family members.This phenomenon brought some influence on the political,economic,cultural and social development of this area inevitably,but the influence was still weak.In the middle and later years of Ming Dynasty,the migration in this area was mainly guided by the government and at the same time spontaneous migration of population was increasing gradually and generated a gradually deepening influence on the area.In the whole process of Ming Dynasty,the conflict between the migrants and the original inhabitants was not obvious as the land resources of this area were still sufficiently rich then.In Qing Dynasty,a great number of migrants flowed into this area and the social development process was greatly accelerated on the basis of Ming Dynasty.In the earlier years of Qing Dynasty,the court conducted bureaucratization of native officers and garrison reformation for some political and military reasons and under the influence of that reformation,this area acquired a completely new outlook.In the middle and later years of Qing Dynasty,the contradiction between man and land was highlighted in central China and a large number of people came to this area to make a living.The southwest part of Guizhou province was developed thoroughly in that period and great changes happened in the society.With the rising degree of theresource shortage,the conflict and contradiction between the migrants and original inhabitants,between the earlier migrants and later migrants and among the different tribes of the original inhabitants became more and more obvious.How to solve these contradictions became a key problem faced by the imperial court in the governance of the area.A series of changes have appeared in the southwest part of Guizhou province since Ming and Qing Dynasty.It has transformed from an “uncivilized” area to a“civilized” one and it is also a miniature and representative of the whole Guizhou area in its social development.