So, what made Guizhou suddenly become a "province"?
The ground is uneven.
Today, Guizhou Province is located in the southwest hinterland of China, "the land is not three feet flat",
"Eight mountains, one water and one field" is the symbolic impression of Guizhou. The landforms in Guizhou Province can be divided into three basic types: plateau mountains, hills and basins, of which mountains and hills account for 92.5%. The rugged landform in mountainous areas not only limits the communication and contact between Guizhou and the outside world, but also divides its own region.
Figure/Guizhou Shanmei
The northwest of Guizhou is Bashu area, the east is Jinghu area, and the south is Lingnan area. For a long period of time, Guizhou has been in the cracks of mountains that agricultural civilization is difficult to reach, and even its internal areas are difficult to form a unified whole because of the division of Wujiang River, Yuanjiang River and Pearl River. In this context, Guizhou was under the surrounding administrative divisions for a long time before the Ming Dynasty, but in fact it was mostly under the rule of the local Miao and Man tribal leaders, and the central dynasty only managed it.
Figure/Guizhou Water System
02 connecting flight appears.
The land in Guizhou is a very tangled existence for the Chinese empire in the agricultural era. Due to the terrain and traffic reasons, the agricultural tax revenue here is not only very scarce, but also difficult to supply to the outside world, and even needs to be supplemented in time in neighboring Hunan and Sichuan. However, the topography of Guizhou forced the central dynasty to pay attention to it.
Once the separatist forces from Yunnan go deep into Guizhou, they will be like a sword between Bashu and Jingxiang, posing a great threat to the financial resources of these two Central Plains dynasties. Therefore, it is necessary to defend Xiangchuan, which has become the default option of the Han central dynasties such as the Tang, Song and even the Ming Dynasty.
At the turn of the Yuan and Ming Dynasties, the importance of Guizhou gradually emerged. After the Tang and Song Dynasties, the Yuan Dynasty successfully recovered Yunnan, which had been separated for hundreds of years, and established Yunnan Province. Therefore, the Yuan government successively set up Bozhou Propaganda Department (governing Zunyi) and Bafan Shunyuan Propaganda Department (governing Guiyang) in the north and south of Guizhou to ensure the effective jurisdiction of the central government over Yunnan and the strategic military supply of the Yuan Empire to Southeast Asia.
After the establishment of the Ming Dynasty, the remnants of Liang Wang in Yunnan of the Yuan Dynasty were not conquered by the armies of Mu Ying and Fu Youde until 1382. Therefore, the stability of Yunnan has also become an important concern of the Ming Dynasty. As an important channel for the Ming Dynasty to rule Yunnan and maintain the system of "three propaganda and six comforts" in Southeast Asia, the Guizhou route that entered Yunnan in a straight line became the most important.
Figure/Three Publicity and Six Comfort Systems in the Ming Dynasty and Jiaozhou Prefecture
From the health station to the province
In order to control this traffic artery, Ming Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang sent hundreds of thousands of troops to station fields in Guizhou and set up health stations along the road. This large-scale migration has obviously greatly changed the local ethnic structure, making it possible for Guizhou to become a municipality directly under the central government.
With the continuous development of the health center system, the control power of the Ming Empire over Guizhou was gradually strengthened, and relatively unified decrees and jurisdiction were gradually formed on the border of this province. In this way, with the needs and conditions, the Ming Dynasty set up the Bureau of Undertaking, Publicity and Production in Guizhou on 14 13, which officially opened the provincial era of Guizhou.
Today, Anshun, Guizhou, located on the ancient post road in Yunnan and Guizhou, is a military stronghold where the guards gathered in the past. After hundreds of years of wind, frost, rain and snow, a series of military-related place names established in the early Ming Dynasty have miraculously survived and evolved to this day.