Скачать или смотреть Tuocheng town in Longchuan, the first Hakka county in Southern China, and its links to the Qin Army

Tuocheng town in Longchuan, the first Hakka county in Southern China, and its links to the Qin Army.

In 214 BC, Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of China, ordered his general, Zhao Tuo and 500 000 Qin soldiers to conquer the Baiyue (various indigenous non-Han groups) who inhabited southern China, and they later settled in Longchuan, a county in Heyuan city, Guangdong. The old Longchuan consisted of the present Heyuan city, Xingning and Wuhua counties in Meizhou city and Huizhou city.

It was the first time in Chinese history that Han (Qin at that point in time) people moved to Southern China. The Heyuan area became an important location for the garrisons sent by the emperor. It was also a frontier for disseminating the culture of the Central Plains.

Historical architecture and relics from the Qin era can be found in various parts of the county, which was also the first Hakka county in Southern China. 98% of the population of Longchuan were Hakka and most of the ancestors of these people were the Qin soldiers and migrants from the Central Plains.

The first well built in Southern China can be found in the town of Tuocheng in the southern part of Longchuan. Known as the "Yue Wang Well 越王井", it was ordered to be bulit by Zhao Tuo who had declared himself as Yue Wang 越王 (King of Yue Kingdom).

A fascinating aspect about Tuocheng was that 179 surnames out of its population of 40000 can be found. In total, there were 438 recorded surnames in China. A village in the town, known as Tuocheng Village, had 140 surnames out of a population of 2000. No where in China had this as clans with the same surname or a few surnames tended to stay in the same village or dwelling in the past. The village was thus known as the "Number One Village of Chinese Surnames 中华姓氏第一村" of China. The reason that Tuocheng had a population with so many surnames was because of the settlement of the Qin soldiers and migrants from the Central Plains. The Baiyue people did not have the culture of having surname.