When it comes to Hakka, we subconsciously misunderstand them as ethnic minorities, but there is no Hakka ethnic group among China's 56 ethnic groups. So why do we think that?
Let's get to know the Hakka people!
In fact, the Hakka are Han Chinese.
Hakka is a very unique branch of the Han people in the south, one of the important ethnic groups of the Han people, and the only one that is not named after the region. In mainland China, Hakka people are mainly distributed in Meizhou, Heyuan, Huiyang and other counties in Guangdong and Jiangxi, Sichuan, Guangxi and other regions, especially Hakka in Southeast Asia and other places, which is also an important part of these national languages. According to statistics, there are about 80 million people in the world, of which there are about 50 million people in China and more than 30 million people abroad. Therefore, Hakka is one of the most widely distributed and far-reaching ethnic groups in the world.
So, how did the name 'Hakka' come from?
Until now, the academic community has not given an accurate explanation for this problem, and opinions are divided. But literally, ''Hakka'' means ''immigrant'', which is a very vivid description, because the Hakka people began in the Qin Shi Huang period and underwent a total of 6 large-scale southward migrations, and the small migrations are countless.
According to historical records, the Qin Shi Huang period was the first large-scale southward migration of the Hakka people. After Qin Shi Huang unified China, he sent 600,000 troops to march south to Baiyue, from Fujian, Guangdong and Gansu to the borders of Xingning and Haifeng counties. Seven years later, Qin Shi Huang sent another 500,000 people to Nanshu Wuling. After the fall of the Qin Dynasty, two groups of Qin soldiers who went south remained in the local area and became the first Hakka.
The Yongjia Rebellion at the end of the Western Jin Dynasty and the Wuhu Chaohua Period in the Eastern Jin Dynasty were the second large-scale migration of the Hakka people to the south. In order to escape the devastation of the war, some of the people of the Central Plains moved into the Fujian-Guangdong-Gansu Border Region.
The Huangchao Rebellion at the end of the Tang Dynasty was the third large-scale southward migration of the Hakka. At the time of the Anshi Rebellion, the land of the Tang Dynasty was destroyed, forcing a large number of central plains people to move south. During the Huangchao Rebellion at the end of the Tang Dynasty, a large number of people from the Central Plains moved south. But this was also the germination of the Hakka language.
The southern crossing of the Song Dynasty and the end of the Song Dynasty were the fourth large-scale southward migration of the Hakka. At the end of the Song Dynasty, the Hakka participated in the anti-Yuan activities led by Wen Tianxiang, and after the defeat of the anti-Yuan, the Yuan army went south to fight, and the Hakka fled all the way to Hainan Island.
The late Ming and early Qing dynasties were the fifth large-scale southward migration of the Hakka. Due to the sharp increase in the population of the Hakka people living in Fujian, Guangdong and Gansu, coupled with the invasion of the Central Plains by the Manchus, the Hakka migrated to Sichuan, Xiang, Guizhou, Taiwan and other places, as well as to central and western Guangdong.
The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom period was the sixth large-scale southward migration of the Hakka.
After the failure of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement, in order to avoid being killed by the rulers of the Qing Dynasty, many Hakka people changed their names and surnames and fled to other places, and a large number of Hakka people fled to Hong Kong and Macao, and some were forced to go to Singapore, Malaysia, Australia, North and South America and other countries to engage in hard labor.
During this period, the Hakka moved from China to all parts of the world, and the Hakka were thus distributed throughout the country.
The formation of Hakka's own language and unique customs and culture is importantly related to the 6 large-scale southward migrations experienced by the Hakka. After thousands of years of migration and evolution, it formed its own unique language, customs and cultural forms around the time of the Southern Song Dynasty.
Therefore, after thousands of years of baptism, Hakka culture is known as the living fossil of ancient Han culture, and the Hakka language is also known as the living fossil of ancient Chinese. For example, in Hakka dialect, a large number of texts have been preserved, and in Hakka dialect, ''I'' is represented by ''wu'' and 'you' is represented by 'er''