History of Chinese Displacement·Ancient Volume

Author: Jiang Lihua / Sun Hongtao
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2001-06-01
Features: Migrants are a common demographic and social phenomenon that emerged after the advent of class society. Around the 21st century BC, China established a slave-state—the Xia Dynasty—and migrants also appeared on the Chinese land. With the passage of time and social evolution, the migrant issue not only failed to be eliminated but became increasingly severe and complex, exerting extensive and profound impacts on politics, economy, culture, and social production and life. The basic characteristics of migrants can be broadly summarized in the following aspects: , spontaneity and disorderliness. Migrants leave their hometowns and move to other places not due to official coercion or organization but as spontaneous actions. Their movement is in a disordered state. This disorder primarily refers to two aspects: first, during their migration, they temporarily break away from the government's organizational management system, becoming a population outside administrative control; second, there is no formal organizational management system within the migrant group itself. They act independently, without subordination to each other, and are highly.
Second, the of migrants are the "people," primarily farmers. "People" is a distinctive feature of this category of floating population. Of course, some migrants may not have been "people" before, such as some former government officials, scholars, escaped convicts, and soldiers. Especially during major wars, such populations join the migrant. However, on the one hand, they account for a very small proportion in the migrant group, and on the other hand, after joining the migrant, they effectively lose their previous status and identity, detach from their original organizational systems, and more closely embody the characteristics of migrants. We might call them "quasi-migrants" or "sub-migrants."
Third, transience and temporariness. Migrants are a certain number of people who, after leaving their original habitats and abandoning their means of livelihood, form a temporary and special population group. From leaving their hometowns to resettling, this group moves about unpredictably, lacking stable production and living means, exhibiting transitional characteristics. Generally, most of them, after a long or short period of wandering, either return to their hometowns or settle in new places, regaining legitimate means of production and living, and exit the migrant. The migrant group is always in a dynamic state of continuous exits and entries.
This volume is the ancient part of the research on China's migrant issue, forming an integral whole with the modern and contemporary parts to conduct a comprehensive exploration of China's migrant issue from ancient to modern times. The main purpose of writing this book is to provide historical experience or insights that can be referenced for the present by researching ancient Chinese migrant issues.