When the rulers of the Qing Dynasty were busy completing the unification of China, the ancestral land that had been devastated by the war was a little desolate, especially after the Qing Dynasty entered the customs, and the three northeastern provinces were even more desolate. Therefore, after the Qing dynasty unified the whole country, the case of recruiting people to reclaim wasteland in Liaodong was promulgated to encourage farmers from Shanhaiguan to emigrate to the northeast, so as to restore the prosperity and glory of the "land of Longxing".
At this time, the provinces in the Central Plains experienced the Li Zicheng Uprising and the Qing soldiers went south, and the working people lost their land in succession. In particular, the rulers of the Qing dynasty thought that "Manchu and Han were easy to contend for", so no matter whether the land was owned or ownerless, as long as Manchu nobles took a fancy to it, they could occupy it at will. For a time, the poor laborers in the village lost their land and were driven out of their homes, becoming homeless people without land. The promulgation of the case of recruiting people for reclamation in Liaodong has made desperate workers see the hope of life. They took their families and families and rushed to Liaodong in droves. Here, they can not only get endless land, but also engage in ginseng mining, hunting, logging, mining, and even become bandits in the mountains. As a result, the Northeast became a paradise for the Han people who lost their land in the provinces of the Central Plains, and the northeast agriculture destroyed by the war in the Ming and Qing Dynasties was restored.
However, the good times did not last long. The rulers of the Qing Dynasty believed that in Longxing ancestral land where Manchu and Han lived together, the folk customs were not simple, and the language and riding and shooting skills were not so pure. Therefore, in the seventh year of Kangxi, the Qing government abolished "Liaodong recruiting people to reclaim wasteland", and at the same time built a wicker border, and designated Changbai Mountain area and the middle and lower reaches of Songhua River as forbidden areas to prohibit Han Chinese from flowing in. In addition, the Eight Banners soldiers of the Manchu Dynasty were constantly deployed to fight in the customs, and the population of the Northeast, which accounts for one fifth of the country, only accounts for 0. 1% of the national population, with an average population density of less than 2 people per square kilometer.
However, this can't stop the laboring masses in Shanhaiguan from yearning for the fertile soil in Northeast China. In order to make a living, they cut through thorns and mountains, avoiding the government's strict investigation of the road to death, and went to the northeast like a gate of hell. From then on, the word "going to the East" came into being and lasted for more than 200 years.
In the middle and late Qing Dynasty, with the invasion of foreign powers and the increasingly acute domestic contradictions, the Manchu royal family could no longer take care of its own "land of Longxing", and the Northeast began to lift the ban and set up special institutions to manage refugee affairs in the Northeast. For example, Changchun Guild Hall was established at that time.
Northeast China has experienced more than 200 years from encouraging the Han people to cultivate land, to banning, loosening and opening it, and from allowing people to cultivate land to recruiting people to cultivate land. In this historical evolution process, the Han people in Shanhaiguan gradually became the protagonists in Northeast China. They not only turned the vast wasteland in Northeast China into fertile fields, but also brought the civilization in the customs here, which made the indigenous people in Northeast China gradually walk out of the forests and wasteland, got rid of the wild primitive state, created a unique civilization in Northeast China, and laid the foundation for Northeast China to become the cradle of the country after the founding of the People's Republic of China.