Many people know that China has an important geographical dividing line-Qinling and Huaihe River. China is divided into north and south by the Qinling Mountains and Huaihe River, and the geographical division also produces the difference between southerners and northerners.
Although both southerners and northerners are from China, northerners have long discriminated against southerners in history. During the Song Dynasty, Kou Zhun in the Ming Dynasty hated southerners very much. Kou Zhun once presided over scientific research, and Xiao Guan, a native of Jiangxi, topped the list. Kou Zhun simply took the No.1 scholar on the grounds that he was born in the south of the Yangtze River, pushing Cai Qi in Pingdu, Shandong Province as the first, and said to everyone, "Another No.1 scholar was won for the Central Plains." During the Zheng De period of the Ming Dynasty, Jiao Fang, a cabinet college student and official minister from Biyang, Henan Province, also spared no effort to promote regional discrimination. He said: "The misfortune of Wang Anshi in the Song Dynasty and Wu in the Yuan Dynasty should be classified as crimes, so as not to insult Jiangxi people in the future."
So what are the reasons why southerners suffered serious geographical discrimination in ancient times?
The dominant psychology of conquerors
From Xia, Shang and Zhou Dynasties to the end of Qing Dynasty, only the Ming Dynasty in ancient China unified the whole country from the south, and other unified dynasties unified the whole country from the north. Because in ancient times, cavalry was the most important arms, and its excellent maneuverability and battlefield destructive power made it the king of ancient land warfare. There are excellent horse breeding grounds in the north, which can provide a large number of excellent war horses, while the south has no ability to maintain a large-scale cavalry force and lost the initiative in the war (which is also an important reason why the Song Dynasty can only defend passively and is difficult to take the initiative after losing sixteen States). It is difficult for the southern regime to defeat the northern regime with a huge cavalry force on the frontal battlefield, and it is also weaker than the northern regime in military strength.
Because of its weak military strength, the South was defeated by the northern rulers for most of China's history. As the conquered, southerners will naturally be discriminated against by northerners. During the Song Zhenzong period, the emperor wanted to worship Wang Qinruo, a native of Jiangxi, as the prime minister, but Wang Dan, the prime minister of Hebei, was unhappy when he saw that his partner was a southerner, and he strongly opposed it on the grounds that "there were no southerners in his ancestors". It was not until Wang Dan retired in his later years that Wang Qinruo became prime minister and became the first person in the south.
In the Yuan Dynasty, the status of southerners was even lower. After Mongolia wiped out the Southern Song Dynasty and unified the whole country, the people of the whole country were divided into four classes: first-class Mongolians, second-class Semu people, third-class Han people and fourth-class southerners. Han people and southerners are both Han people, but they are discriminated against more because they join the ruling group at the latest and have the lowest status. They prohibit or restrict southerners from praying for gods, learning the martial arts of guns and clubs, even singing operas and commenting on stories to prevent them from gathering people to make trouble, and even prohibit farmers in the south of the Yangtze River from using iron forks.
The Long-term Economic Advantage of the North
As the earliest birthplace of the Chinese nation, the North became the most developed area in ancient China because of its leading productivity and social system. Northerners intensively cultivated and plowed in Niu Geng, making the north the economic center of the country and the commodity economy relatively developed. During the Han Dynasty, Luoyang, Linzi, Wan, Handan and Chengdu were the five major capitals. These five cities were the most prosperous cities in China except Chang 'an at that time, but only one Chengdu was in the south, and the other four cities, including Chang 'an, were in the north.
In the south, due to the late development and backward economy, Sima Qian's Historical Records records: "The more vast Chu is, the more sparsely populated it is. There are rice, soup, fish, or boiled water ... South of Jianghuai, those who are not frozen and hungry are homeless." From Sima Qian's narration, we can see that although the south can meet its own living needs because of its superior geographical environment, due to its backward productivity, its output can only be self-sufficient and there is no surplus product, so it cannot flow into the market and promote the development of commodity economy. Without a developed commodity economy, there would naturally be no "home of thousands of women".
The commodity economy in the north is much more developed than that in the south, which makes northerners richer than southerners. As rich people, northerners naturally look down on the "poor wretches" in the south (although the south became the economic center of our country in the later period, northerners thought that my ancestors were too rich, and in the social structure of "intellectuals, farmers and businessmen" in ancient China, the rich people in the south were just businessmen with low social status, and they still looked down on southerners).
Long-term vicious propaganda by some northerners
In ancient China, the north was a political and cultural center for a long time, which led to the fact that the bureaucrats of northern scholars had more right to speak than those of southern scholars, and influenced the trend of public opinion in the whole country.
From the records of history books, we can get a glimpse of one or two. The description of Beiguan in ancient times was generally "simple and honest", "strong and brave" and "diligent and diligent". On the south, the central Zhejiang and the western Zhejiang are "enterprising and profitable, but skillful at stunts", Guangnan is "weak in people's nature", Jiangdong is "arrogant and brittle in vulgarity", Suzhou is "arrogant and extravagant", Changsha is "the people like litigation the most, but it is difficult to treat them", and Rongzhou in Sichuan is "disrespectful in name". Fujian people are called "Fujian Zi" and Sichuanese are called "Chuantaizi". Not only that, northerners also ridicule southerners by their names. "Fujian and Sichuan have the same wind, and there are insects in their bellies, and the words follow the insects."
In the Qing Dynasty, the highest evaluation of local officials in Zhejiang by Yongzheng and Qianlong emperors was that there was no "Zhejiang ethos", which showed the influence of long-term vicious propaganda on southerners.
Long-term vicious propaganda has given southerners a cunning and insidious stereotype (just as Zhu Yuanzhang was painted as a horse face by a painter in the Qing Dynasty, and northerners vilified South Renye Fang). As soon as this bad overall impression is formed, it intensifies the discrimination against southerners and forms a vicious circle.
Lack of communication between north and south
Ancient times was different from modern times, and there was no convenient and developed transportation, which led to inconvenient information exchange between North and South. Moreover, the strict road guiding system and the custom of settling land in ancient China led to a small number of floating population except a few literati and businessmen. There is a shortage of floating population and little understanding of the actual situation in various places.
Although distance produces beauty, too far away leads to too little communication and only misunderstanding. Due to the lack of communication between the north and the south, misunderstandings and discrimination caused by different customs between the north and the south often occur. Due to the humid climate and poisonous insects in the south of Guangdong and Guangxi, the local people have the habit of eat areca. The local people think that eat areca can help digestion, eliminate phlegm, control malaria, kill insects, refresh the mind and make tea. Northerners who have just arrived in Guangdong and Guangxi, when they saw the local people coming in constantly in eat areca, made a mockery of "the population on the road is like sheep". But in fact, this is just a unique habit formed by the local people due to their geographical environment. Due to lack of communication, it is difficult for northerners to understand the customs of southerners.
Southerners are discriminated against for many reasons, but this kind of regional discrimination is wrong. It will not be conducive to the development of the country and society, but will only lead to conflict and even division.
Southerners have long been discriminated against by northerners, and of course they are not convinced. Northerners call southerners "Naman", while South Renye Fang is not to be outdone, calling northerners "North Pants". Southerners and northerners hate each other, which leads to low recognition of the central government and weak cohesion of the whole country.
Both the Eastern Jin Dynasty and the Southern Song Dynasty were new regimes established by the Central Plains regime, which were defeated by the northern minorities and forced to retreat to the south. These two regimes, which favor the south, failed to properly handle the problem of mutual discrimination between the north and the south. Southerners all think that northerners have moved south and occupied their own land, and recovering the Central Plains has nothing to do with the south, and they are unwilling to fight against the northern minorities. It made it impossible for the Eastern Jin Dynasty and the Southern Song Dynasty to concentrate limited manpower and material resources, which led them to have no chance to go north to the Central Plains and recover their homeland.
Now we should take a warning and say no to geographical discrimination. Respect various local customs, learn to understand, and avoid stereotypes and generalizations. Only by jumping out of the trap of regional discrimination can society be more harmonious.