Outside Gubeikou is Rehe - the cultural root-seeking journey of the descendants of those who left their hometowns in Guandong probably happened on a mid-spring noon more than three hundred years ago, when a group of geese returned north and the sun was warm. Their names were Xu Ren and Xu Xin.

The two brothers set off from their hometown in Shandong and followed the flow of people heading north to reclaim the wasteland. They passed through Zhili and went north, bypassing the city of Beijing, exiting Gubeikou, and entering the border outside the Great Wall. After briefly stopping in several refugee shelters, they finally arrived at the purpose of their trip.

Land, a place they later called Huang Tu Liang.

Several fellow villagers who had arrived early last year warmly welcomed them, although in a few cracked coarse porcelain bowls, there were only handfuls of freshly dug wild vegetables for dipping sauce and a handful of rice porridge and soup that was clear and appreciable.

After eating, Xu Ren, who had studied Chinese medicine for a few days and had a rough understanding of writing, took out a homespun bag from his arms and opened it, revealing several rough paper family letters.

Xu Ren read the letter word by word to the people around him in order of age of the recipients.

In the spring outside the Great Wall, looking south, some people began to sob softly in the Shandong accent that was incompatible with the rough scenery of the surrounding north. The distant mountains became even more hazy, and the silent noon became even more silent.

After settling in for a while, we walked out of the shack that the fellow villagers had helped build. Not far away was the barren grassland that was being reclaimed.

The two brothers turned out to be fishermen passed down from generation to generation. Although a few months ago they were repairing fishing nets for their parents and several younger brothers in a dilapidated courtyard near the sea in their hometown, they looked at each other at this time.

They all rolled up their tattered trouser legs, picked up unfamiliar farm tools, and clumsily wielded the family's first hoe in a distant foreign land... This is a tribute to one of the countless refugees who left the customs and went north to reclaim wasteland during the Yongzheng and Qianlong years of the Qing Dynasty.

The scene of the most ordinary family is restored. Out of respect for the ancestors, the description of this scene has been lovingly reconstructed by later generations. However, this great population migration in history may be far more cruel than this scene.

There are many accurate historical records. During the Kang, Yong and Qian years, locust plagues and droughts occurred many times in Shandong, Henan, Hebei and other places. When the disasters were severe, people were starved of food and refugees spread everywhere. In the far north, there were rumors

It is a fertile wilderness with abundant water and grass that has not yet been cultivated, so brave people continue to sneak out of the mouth to find a way to survive.

In order to prevent civil unrest, after being reserved for a long time, the rulers of the Qing Dynasty had no choice but to relax the border restrictions originally customized by their ancestors and began to implement the policy of "borrowing land to support the people".

"Today's refugees are unusual. If the inspection is too strict, they may have no way out... It is not necessary to be too strict, but to make some adjustments to help the refugees." ("Records of Emperor Gaozong of the Qing Dynasty")?

As soon as the hole was opened, a large number of hungry victims quickly swarmed northward.

Different from the later influx of peasants from the pass into the three northeastern provinces at the end of the Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the Republic of China, the historical destination of this group of refugees was Rehe, a now-disappeared administrative region. Its jurisdiction was generally located north of the Great Wall and

The vast area south of the Daxingan Mountains, west of the Liaohe River, and east of Duolun.

This area was once one of the important birthplaces of Chinese civilization, and the dragon-shaped image passed down in Hongshan culture is still an important totem of the Chinese nation.

In the history of thousands of years, the Shanrong, Xianbei, Xi, Khitan, Jurchen, Mongolian, Manchu and other ethnic groups have put their own unique marks here. With this large-scale refugee movement northward, the uniqueness of this area has

The multicultural jigsaw puzzle has been basically completed and has formed a stable structural system that has been passed down to this day. At the same time, it also objectively kicked off the "Guandong" immigration wave in later generations.

But the road out of the customs is so long. What awaits these hungry people is not only the long journey, disease, famine, wild beasts, banditry, but also the unknown future.

Even today, hundreds of years later, the heaviness of their steps can still be felt from the distant and broken memories of that era by future generations.

Among the Xu family brothers, the elder brother Xu Ren later described to his descendants more than once that among the dozen or so people who set out at the same time as the two brothers, only the two brothers reached their destination after going through many twists and turns.

Enduring the exhaustion and hardship, they retraced their steps, some changed their destination midway, and many more abandoned their thin bodies on the journey of more than a thousand kilometers out of the customs.

The two brothers were able to arrive smoothly because their elder brother Xu Ren had studied Chinese medicine for a period of time in his hometown and knew basic medical knowledge. After eating all the food he brought with him and only a few copper coins left in his pocket, he was hesitant to continue.

While moving forward, he was spotted by a passing Mongolian caravan, and then he successfully arrived at his destination, and then the scene at the beginning happened.

When checking relevant local chronicles, we will notice an interesting phenomenon. In this area, the names of villages are very distinctive.

Among them, villages named "Wopu" can be seen everywhere.

"Wopu", Baidu Encyclopedia interprets it as "a shack for sleeping".

Today, such simple shelters can still be seen around melon fields and vegetable fields in northern rural areas.

Several pieces of wood were used to build a herringbone-shaped frame. After covering the branches, mud mixed with straw was spread on it, and a layer of thatch sourced from the local area was covered with thatch.

The extremely crude building materials shield the people from the wind and sun, and also support the homeless people's desire for survival.

Another frequently occurring word in village names is "gou", which is related to geographical factors.

The local area has a semi-arid continental monsoon climate, and there are no abundant rivers winding horizontally and vertically. However, human beings cannot survive without water, and residences must be built based on water. Most springs gush out from mountain ravines, so living in ravines for easy access to water was a popular choice at that time.

Necessary means of survival.