Punti–Hakka Clan Wars
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The Punti–Hakka Clan Wars were a conflict between the
Hakka The Hakka (), sometimes also referred to as Hakka Han, or Hakka Chinese, or Hakkas are a Han Chinese subgroup whose ancestral homes are chiefly in the Hakka-speaking provincial areas of Guangdong, Fujian, Jiangxi, Guangxi, Sichuan, Hunan, Zhej ...
and Cantonese people in
Guangdong Guangdong (, ), alternatively romanized as Canton or Kwangtung, is a coastal province in South China on the north shore of the South China Sea. The capital of the province is Guangzhou. With a population of 126.01 million (as of 2020) ...
, China between 1855 and 1867. The wars were fierce around the Pearl River Delta, especially in Toi Shan of the
Sze Yup The Siyi (Seiyap or Sze Yup in Cantonese; ) refers to the four former counties of Xinhui (Sunwui), Taishan (Toisan), Kaiping (Hoiping) and Enping (Yanping) on the west side of the Pearl River Delta in Southern Guangdong Province, China. Geogra ...
counties. The wars resulted in roughly a million dead with many more fleeing for their lives.


Background

Hakka literally means guest family, and Punti literally means natives. The Punti are also referred to by the languages that they spoke,
Yue Chinese Yue () is a group of similar Sinitic languages spoken in Southern China, particularly in Liangguang (the Guangdong and Guangxi provinces). The name Cantonese is often used for the whole group, but linguists prefer to reserve that name for ...
. The origins of the bloody conflict lay in resentment of the Cantonese towards the
Hakka people The Hakka (), sometimes also referred to as Hakka Han, or Hakka Chinese, or Hakkas are a Han Chinese subgroup whose ancestral homes are chiefly in the Hakka-speaking provincial areas of Guangdong, Fujian, Jiangxi, Guangxi, Sichuan, Hunan, Zhej ...
, whose dramatic population growth threatened the Cantonese people. The Hakka were marginalized and resentful in turn. They were forced to inhabit the hills and waterways, rather than the fertile plains. The existing
Cantonese Cantonese ( zh, t=廣東話, s=广东话, first=t, cy=Gwóngdūng wá) is a language within the Chinese (Sinitic) branch of the Sino-Tibetan languages originating from the city of Guangzhou (historically known as Canton) and its surrounding ar ...
-speaking
natives Indigenous peoples are culturally distinct ethnic groups whose members are directly descended from the earliest known inhabitants of a particular geographic region and, to some extent, maintain the language and culture of those original people ...
(, ''bendi'') of those areas, known in Cantonese as "Punti", were protective of their own more fertile lands. The newcomers were pushed to the outer fringes of fertile plains, or they settled in more mountainous regions to eke out a living. Conflict between the two groups grew and it is thought that "Hakka" became a term of derision used by the "Punti" that was aimed at the newcomers. Eventually, the tension between the two groups (the Hakkas had by then been settled for several hundred years and could not be regarded as migrants in any sense) would lead to a series of 19th-century skirmishes in the Pearl River Delta, known as the Punti–Hakka Clan Wars. The problem was not that the two groups spoke a different language. In fact, the "locals" comprised different peoples speaking several mutually-unintelligible tongues, as was typical of the Chinese countryside all over southern China, but they would regard one another as "locals" or Puntis and exclude the Hakkas from such designation. (The Chinese ''bendi'' describes any native people in any location; the English term "Punti" describes the native Cantonese in Guangdong but not the emigrant Cantonese elsewhere.) Over time, the newcomers adopted the term "Hakka" to refer to themselves, not least because of the migratory tendencies inherent in their own culture. Although most of the immigrants who were called Hakkas were
Hakka The Hakka (), sometimes also referred to as Hakka Han, or Hakka Chinese, or Hakkas are a Han Chinese subgroup whose ancestral homes are chiefly in the Hakka-speaking provincial areas of Guangdong, Fujian, Jiangxi, Guangxi, Sichuan, Hunan, Zhej ...
-speakers, the term was later used to include various hill ethnicities such as the She and
Yao people The Yao people (its majority branch is also known as Mien; ; vi, người Dao) is a government classification for various minorities in China and Vietnam. They are one of the 55 officially recognised ethnic minorities in China and reside in t ...
, which were registered as so-called "Guest Families" since they had migrated with the Hakkas from the hills. Intermarriages among Hakka and Punti was extremely rare. Studies of both Cantonese and Hakka genealogies, some Hakka and Punti people with the same surnames allege that they may have the same ancestors, but their descendants strongly identify with one group to the exclusion of the other. During the
Qing conquest of the Ming The transition from Ming to Qing, alternatively known as Ming–Qing transition or the Manchu conquest of China, from 1618 to 1683, saw the transition between two major dynasties in Chinese history. It was a decades-long conflict between the e ...
, Ming loyalists under
Koxinga Zheng Chenggong, Prince of Yanping (; 27 August 1624 – 23 June 1662), better known internationally as Koxinga (), was a Ming loyalist general who resisted the Qing conquest of China in the 17th century, fighting them on China's southeastern ...
established a temporary seat and regional office for the
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in
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in the hopes of eventually retaking Mainland China. In an attempt to defeat those warriors and pirates without a war, the
Kangxi Emperor The Kangxi Emperor (4 May 1654– 20 December 1722), also known by his temple name Emperor Shengzu of Qing, born Xuanye, was the third emperor of the Qing dynasty, and the second Qing emperor to rule over China proper, reigning from 1661 to ...
strengthened his dynasty's sea ban (''haijin'') in 1661 and issued the order for the
Great Clearance The Great Clearance (), also translated as the Great Evacuation or Great Frontier Shift, was caused by edicts issued in 1661, 1664, and 1679, which required the evacuation of the coastal areas of Guangdong, Fujian, Zhejiang, Jiangnan, and Shandong ...
of the southeastern coast. Chinese, especially the ethnic
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, who were living off the coast of Shandong to
Guangdong Guangdong (, ), alternatively romanized as Canton or Kwangtung, is a coastal province in South China on the north shore of the South China Sea. The capital of the province is Guangzhou. With a population of 126.01 million (as of 2020) ...
were ordered to destroy their property and to move inland 30 to (about ) upon pain of death to deprive the Taiwanese rebels of support or targets to raid. The governors and viceroys of the affected provinces submitted scathing memorials, and the policy was reversed after eight years. In 1669 and 1671, however, strong typhoons destroyed what few settlements existed. As far fewer Punti returned to the abandoned lands than had been expected, the Qing ruler decided to provided incentives to repopulate these areas. The most visible of those who responded were the
Hakka The Hakka (), sometimes also referred to as Hakka Han, or Hakka Chinese, or Hakkas are a Han Chinese subgroup whose ancestral homes are chiefly in the Hakka-speaking provincial areas of Guangdong, Fujian, Jiangxi, Guangxi, Sichuan, Hunan, Zhej ...
. For some time, the Punti and the Hakka lived together peacefully. As the population of Guangdong Province soared, life became increasingly difficult, and unrest broke out, such as the Red Turban Rebellion, which was led by the Cantonese, and attacked Ho Yun and Fat Shan.


Clan war

During the Red Turban Rebellion in Canton, the Hakkas had helped the imperial army raid Punti villages to kill the rebels and any real or suspected sympathisers, including villagers who had been forced to pay taxes to the Red Turbans. That precipitated open hostility between the Hakka and the Punti, with the Punti attacking Hakka villages in revenge. Battles raged in which both sides fortified their villages with walls, destroyed bridges and roads, and raised armies as best they could. Entire villages were involved in the fighting, with all able-bodied men called to fight. The Cantonese were armed with the help of their relatives in
Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delta i ...
and the
Chinese diaspora Overseas Chinese () refers to people of Chinese birth or ethnicity who reside outside Mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan. As of 2011, there were over 40.3 million overseas Chinese. Terminology () or ''Hoan-kheh'' () in Hokkien, re ...
who lived abroad. Some captives were sold to
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and
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as
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through Hong Kong and
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, and others were sold to the brothels of Macau. During the war, 500,000 perished from
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fighting in which thousands of villages were destroyed, but an even greater number perished in epidemics.


Resolution

The conflict reached a devastating scale. It is estimated that over a million died and that thousands of villages were destroyed. The Punti significantly outnumbered the Hakka, whose losses were therefore more extensive. The population share of Hakka in the Sze Yup area dropped to 3%, with many relocating to Guangxi.


See also

* Zhangzhou-Quanzhou conflict,
Lin Shuangwen rebellion The Lin Shuangwen rebellion () occurred in 17871788 in Taiwan under the rule of the Qing dynasty. The rebellion was started by the rebel Lin Shuangwen and was pacified by the Qianlong Emperor. Lin Shuangwen was then executed. It started when the ...
*
Hakka The Hakka (), sometimes also referred to as Hakka Han, or Hakka Chinese, or Hakkas are a Han Chinese subgroup whose ancestral homes are chiefly in the Hakka-speaking provincial areas of Guangdong, Fujian, Jiangxi, Guangxi, Sichuan, Hunan, Zhej ...
*
Punti ''Punti'' ( zh, t=本地, j=bun2 dei6, l=locals) is a Cantonese endonym referring to the native Cantonese people of Guangdong and Guangxi. ''Punti'' designates Weitou dialect-speaking locals in contrast to other Yue Chinese speakers and other ...
* Cantonese culture


References


External links


土客械斗十二年 (Simplified Chinese)


* {{DEFAULTSORT:Punti-Hakka Clan Wars Wars involving the Qing dynasty Clannism History of Hong Kong Military history of Guangdong Cantonese culture Hakka culture in China Hakka culture in Hong Kong 19th-century military history of China 19th-century conflicts Siyi