Chuang Guandong

Crashing into Guandong
Native name	闖關東
English name	Chuang Guandong
Type	Manchu as the majority ethnic group in Guandong

Chuang Guandong (

Manchu-led Qing dynasty, this part of China, the traditional homeland of the ruling Manchus, was, with few exceptions, closed to settlement by Han civilians, with only certain Manchu bannermen, Mongol bannermen, and Han bannermen allowed in. The Manchuria/Northeast China

area now has an overwhelmingly Han population.

Historical background

Henry E.M. James

in 1887

Manchuria, also called Guandong (literally, "east of the pass" referring to Shanhai Pass at the east end of the Great Wall of China) or Guanwai (Chinese: 關外; pinyin: Guānwài; lit. 'outside of the pass'), used to be a land of sparse population, inhabited mainly by the Tungusic peoples. In 1668 during the reign of the Kangxi Emperor, the Qing government decreed a further prohibition of non-Eight Banner people relocating into this area.

However, Qing rule saw a massively increasing amount of Han people both illegally and legally streaming into Manchuria and settling down to cultivate land as Manchu landlords desired Han peasants to rent their land and grow grain; most Han migrants were not evicted as they went over the Great Wall and Willow Palisade. During the eighteenth century, Han people farmed 500,000 hectares of privately owned land in Manchuria and 203,583 hectares of lands which were part of courier stations, noble estates, and Banner lands. In Manchuria, ethnic Han made up 80% of the population of garrisons and towns.^[1]

Han farmers were resettled from northern China by the Qing to the area along the

Abbé Huc.^[8]

The sparse population of the Qing Empire's northeastern borderlands facilitated

Zhili Province (the present-day Hebei) and Shandong

to move to and live in Manchuria, where one district after another became officially opened for settlement.

The exact numbers of migrants cannot be counted, because of the variety of ways of travel (some walked), and the underdeveloped government statistics apparatus. Nonetheless, based on the reports of the

South Manchurian Railway, modern historians Thomas Gottschang and Diana Lary estimate that, during the period 1891–1942, some 25.4 million migrants arrived to Manchuria from China south of the Great Wall, and 16.7 million went back. This gives the total positive migration balance of 8.7 million people over this half a century period.^[10]

Those who moved to Manchuria were poor farmers mainly from Shandong who traveled through the land of Shanhai Pass or by sea, using the Yantai-Lushun ferry that was in service due to the

Lushun in Liaodong Peninsula.^{[citation needed}

]