There is an ancient Xianbei village in Guangdong! 131

The Xianbei were born in the DaXingAnLing Mountains; Guangdong is located south of the Five Ridges. Their descendants still live here today, and although their customs and language have long since been Cantoneseised, the glory of their Xianbei ancestors is still recorded in their ancestral halls and genealogies, and even their powerful genes are still passed on today.
Let's start by learning a little about the Xianbei, a historical minority that seems somewhat familiar, yet relatively unknown to us. In the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, 10 kilometres north-west of the town of Alice in the Oroqen Autonomous Banner, there is a natural cave called Gaxian Cave, which is thought to be the birthplace of the Xianbei people. The Xianbei originated in the Daxinganling Mountains, then moved south to the grasslands of Inner Mongolia, where they fought a long tug-of-war with the Xiongnu and the Central Plains, before moving south in batches to establish a number of regime states, including the Southern Liang in the area of present-day Xining in Qinghai and the Northern Wei Dynasty in the area of present-day Datong in Shanxi.
The Xianbei were one of the most influential nomads in China during the Wei, Jin and Northern Dynasties. After the Eight Kings' Rebellion in the Western Jin Dynasty, the Five Hu Rebellion took place in Chinese history, of which the Xianbei were an important force, with the Murong clan establishing the Yan (former Yan, later Yan, Western Yan, Southern Yan and Northern Yan) and the Western Qin and Southern Liang, the Tuohy clan establishing the Northern Wei and unifying the north, and the Yuwen clan establishing the Northern Zhou.
After the unification of China by the Sui Dynasty, the Xianbei gradually disappeared from history. Some people say that the minority Xibe and Tuo tribes may be descended from the Xianbei people, which is all justifiable as a northern minority, but it seems a little unusual that in Guangdong, thousands of miles away, there are descendants of the Xianbei Murong and Yuan clans living to this day.

The ancient Xianbei village we are talking about today is located in Longkou Town, Heshan City, Guangdong Province, and is a village made up of descendants of the Xianbei Yuan Clan.

Xiaonan Village is located in the eastern part of Longkou Town, formed by the merger of two villages, Xiaoxiang and Nan'an, with a resident population of around 2,000. Xiaonan is a village with a history of over 740 years and the village is dominated by the Yuan surname.

The ancestor of the Yuan clan in Xiaonan village was called Yuan He, formerly known as Bald Fat Broken Qiang, who was the son of the Prince of Southern Liang. After the fall of Southern Liang, he surrendered to Western Qin with the crowd and later fled to Northern Wei when his father, brother and sister were killed.

When Yuan He arrived in Northern Wei, he was appreciated by Emperor Tuo Yuan's son, who said to him, "Your origin is the same as mine, but you can have a different surname because of the incident. Later on, he gave him the name "He" because he thought "Broken Qiang" was bad. From then on, the name "Gen He" was given to Baldur Broke. His people have since changed their surname to "Yuan".

After the abdication of Emperor Xianwen, he joined forces with the Shang Shu to install Crown Prince Yuan Hong as Emperor. He assisted four dynasties in his life and was promoted to the title of King of Longxi.

The couplet in the ancestral hall of the village reads, "Originated from the Northern Wei Dynasty, promoted to the title of King of West China", which sums up the life of the village ancestor, Yuan He.

On his deathbed, Yuan He instructed his descendants to be "sincere and diligent in serving the ruler, and to conduct themselves in a pure manner". The Gen He's descendants followed his instructions and served their country with distinction over the Northern, Sui and Tang dynasties, with more than fifty of them being listed in the Twenty-Four Histories, plus more than eighty in other historical documents.

Among them, Yuan Qian Yao, the seventh grandson of Yuan He, was a brilliant, prudent, diligent and agile official who served for more than forty years, nearly ten of them as Chancellor, with remarkable achievements, and was known as one of the "famous ministers of Kaiyuan" in the Tang Dynasty.

How did the Genji clan end up in Guangdong when they were doing so well in the north? During the Tang Dynasty, the Genji clan faded from the political scene due to the Genshu Incident, a major Tang official who attempted to seize the throne of the Tang Dynasty and was killed by Emperor Dzong of Tang. At the time, the Genshu were killed and only a few escaped.

From then on, the Yuan clan of Xianbei descent disappeared into obscurity, living in seclusion and unknown to the people, and it is difficult to find detailed records of the Yuan clan in history books. The Gen clan lived a life of leisure and self-sufficiency, mainly in business and farming.

During the Northern Song Dynasty, the Genji clan declined due to natural disasters and the implementation of the Green Miao Law. During the Jianyan period of the Southern Song Dynasty, the Yuan family went south to escape the war and came to Zhujixiang in Nanxiong, Guangdong. During the Xianchun period of the Southern Song Dynasty, the Yuan clan fled again when the government wanted to cleanse Zhujixiang due to the 'scourge of Hu Fei', and they were led by a man called Yuan Qianfu, who eventually settled in what is now Xiaoxiang, Longkou Town, Heshan City, Guangdong.

After arriving in Guangdong, the Yuan descendants settled in peace and happiness, but how many hardships and stories were experienced during the period from the distant Daxinganling to the settlement in Guangdong, 10,000 miles away, we no longer know.

Only the nine large and small ancestral halls in the small village of Xiaonan, with a pair of golden couplets reading "Originated from the Northern Wei, the Jin title was given to Xiping", "The same origin in the Northern Wei is far away, the Southern Xiongnu has a long history" and "The Chinese descendants opened East Guangdong, the Ming ritual sacrificed to Beiping" ...... tell us that this village has an unusual historical origin and a different story.

Even in Lingnan, where there are no relatives, the descendants of the Yuan clan still have a lot of talent, including Yuan Jilin, the founder of Ganhe Tea, Yuan Longzhang, the modern-day "Dye King", Yuan Jijiao, the head of Hong Kong's largest theatre in the last century, and Yuan Bingyi, the founder of Hong Kong's famous company, Half Dome Textile Industries.

In 1892, Yuan Jilin created Gan He Cha, a Chinese herbal tea that can relieve wind and heat, relieve summer heat and food, and quench thirst. It is used for cold and fever, headache, bone pain, food stagnation and fullness, abdominal pain and diarrhoea.

At that time, in order to open up the sales situation, the Yuan family seized the opportunity to highlight the characteristics of sweet and tea, to make the "summer gift" trick, in the Pearl River Delta area, to take a taste, gift tea. In other words, following the practice of giving congee in disaster relief, staff were dispatched to the urban and rural areas of the Pearl River Delta and roadside teahouse resting places to invite passers-by to drink the boiled Ganhe tea for free and give away a small amount of the finished product, while posting and distributing the advertising paper to various places, and persistently.

In Qing Guangxu 24 (1898), Guangdong Nanhai, Foshan area of the plague, Yuan Jilin family mobilised all forces, giving drinks to send medicine, Gan and tea to save many people. Gan and tea opened up the situation, sold to Guangdong, Hunan and other places. By 1905, the sales volume of Gan He tea had risen to over 200,000 boxes and was gradually sold overseas.

Today, there is even an old shop in Sheung Wan, Hong Kong, which has been selling Gan He tea since 1906.

Gen later returned to his hometown to set up a factory at the site of the original Xiao Nan Primary School, and today you can still smell the sweet aroma of herbal tea wafting through the air when you walk into the village.

Xiao Nan is not a large village and there are not too many historical sites in the village in general, but apart from a few ancestral halls, there are some places worth seeing, this is the Long Zhang Garden in the village, the origins of which are unknown.

There is still a section of the old city wall and stone staircase around the east gate, which has some ancient flavour, but the village was not only walled but also surrounded by a moat.

The village is dotted with stone paths, not unlike a typical Lingnan village. Near the former residence of Yuan Jilin are two ancient wells, one square and one round, a few metres apart.

The two ancient wells are said to be more than 740 years old, as they represent the Sun and Moon Mountains of Qinghai, where the ancestors of the Yuan clan lived after they migrated to Xiaonan.

The villagers here wear ordinary Chinese clothes, speak the authentic vernacular, and their food and habits are no different from those of the locals.

Who could have imagined that these villagers were the ancestors of the Xianbei people who used to hunt in the forests of the Daxinganling and graze on the Hulunbeier steppes in Inner Mongolia? Who could have imagined that these hardened men of the north, who once roamed the frozen grasslands, would have travelled thousands of miles to live in seclusion in this southern water village?

From 13 to 26 May 1999, Yuan Ke, a doctor who runs a clinic in Xiaoxiang, was entrusted by the entire Yuan clan of his village to make a special trip to Gaxian Cave, the birthplace of the Xianbei people, in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, in search of their ancestors. The picture shows the bark house "Xianren Pillar", which is the style of the ancestral dwelling of the Xianbei.

Today, the Xianbei people have died out as a famous ethnic group, but in history books, we can still find the Murong, Du

Gou, Tuohu and Yuan surnames, among others.

Throughout the millennia of history, the jingoism and swordplay of these nomadic people have finally been transformed into a red flower in the villages of Lingnan.
It is actually interesting to note that this is not the only village in Guangdong that is descended from the Xianbei people. In the villages of Mu cun, Daqi and Zhonggang in the town of Bai tu in Zhaoqing, Guangdong, there is a concentration of descendants of the Xianbei Murong clan living. It is said that their ancestors kept moving south because they were fleeing persecution by Liu Yu, the founding emperor of the Southern Song Dynasty. By the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, the Murong clan had assisted Zhu Yuanzhang in establishing a dynasty, but later Zhu Yuanzhang persecuted them again. The Murong clan had to move further south and also changed their surnames, some to Mu or Mu and some to Rong, before finally settling in Zhaoqing.
One person who must be mentioned when talking about the disappearance of the Xianbei clan is the famous Emperor Xiaowen in the history of the Northern Wei. Emperor Xiaowen was a determined Sinicist and during his reign, he strongly implemented a series of Sinic reforms. For example, the Xianbei nobles were forbidden to speak the Xianbei language and were all forbidden to wear Hu clothing, and all the Xianbei nobles changed their surnames to Chinese. "The Xiaowen Emperor's extreme Sinicization of the Han dynasty was a major step forward. This extreme Sinicization was certainly opposed by the Xianbei people, and Emperor Xiaowen's crown prince opposed this extreme Sinicization, even to the extent of having him executed.
Had it not been for Emperor Xiaowen's extreme Sinicisation, would the Xianbei have disappeared? History does not allow for hypotheses, as the Xianbei has become a historical people, and today we can only find the glorious history of our Xianbei ancestors in history books and historical stories, without realising that there is still an intact Xianbei village in Lingnan, thousands of miles away.