The hometown was renamed by Hong Xiuquan

Mondo History Updated on 2024-02-08

In China's administrative divisions, provinces have the same status as autonomous regions, municipalities directly under the Central Government and special administrative regions, and are all regarded as provincial-level administrative regions of China. Considering China's vast territory, the establishment of sufficient provincial-level administrative regions is necessary.

It's like managing 10,000 people, and if you don't divide into small groups, large groups, and super large groups, it becomes extremely difficult. However, with this hierarchical division, the whole process becomes much easier by simply managing the oversized team leader at the top of the pyramid.

The purpose of the establishment of provinces is to ensure that national policies can fully cover all parts of the country. At present, China has a total of 34 first-level administrative regions, including 23 provinces, 5 autonomous regions, 4 municipalities directly under the Central Government and 2 special administrative regions.

Dating back to the Yuan Dynasty, the prototype of the modern provincial-level administrative region had already appeared, when the Yuan Dynasty set up 10 provinces, 1 Zhongshu Province and 1 Xuanzheng Yuan District. After the establishment of the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang believed that the power of the province was too great, and split it into the Department of Undertaking and Announcing Political Envoys, the Department of Procuratorial Envoys and the Department of Command Envoys, which were in charge of administrative, judicial and military powers respectively.

At that time, there were 14 political envoys, 2 directly subordinate regions, and other border administrative regions. After the establishment of the Qing Dynasty, it inherited the system of the Ming Dynasty and added new administrative divisions, with a total of 25 provincial-level administrative regions including 18 political envoys.

Since the continuation of the Qing system, China's administrative divisions have been changing, but the names have been relatively stable, and even the names of some provinces are still in use today. However, in the long course of history, there has been an interesting "joke".

In the last years of the Qing Dynasty, Hong Xiuquan changed the names of many provinces, some of which were quite funny, what was your hometown changed to? In that era of internal and external troubles and the confusion of the country's future, people could only find their own way out.

For readers, no matter how society changes, survival is the most important thing. At that time, the best way out was to study culture hard and serve China in the future.

In Guangxi, a young man named Hong Xiuquan is struggling to realize his ideals. He believed that the God of the West was more just than the Emperor of the East, so he believed in the God of the West and called himself the Son of God.

He looked forward to the arrival of a "Taiping Heavenly Kingdom", a place where everyone could enjoy peace in peace, as he described in the "Awakening of the World of the Original Path". However, the rulers of the Qing court did not notice him and his ideals.

Under Hong Xiuquan's advocacy, many people who were living in hardship due to the exploitation of the Qing Dynasty joined the worship of God one after another, and since then, Hong Xiuquan has changed from a weak scholar to the leader of the peasant uprising.

In 1851, he declared an uprising in Jintian, named the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, and a huge peasant uprising broke out. At first, Qing ** did not expect the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom's combat power to be so strong.

Under the leadership of Hong Xiuquan and others, the Taiping army went all the way north, captured Yong'an, Guangxi, realized the establishment of Yong'an, and divided the kings, among which Yang Xiuqing was named the king of the east, Xiao Chaogui was the king of the west, Feng Yunshan was the king of the south, Wei Changhui was the king of the north, and Shi Dakai was the king of wings.

This marked the rise of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom and also heralded their pursuit of fairness and justice.

After the Taiping army was successfully established and broke through from Yong'an, they marched north, conquered Nanjing on March 19, 1853, officially designated Nanjing as the capital, and renamed Tianjing, in order to compete with the Qing **.

At that time, Hong Xiuquan was full of spirit and firmly believed that the world of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was coming. With the new regime, he decided to make a complete repudiation of everything in the Qing court, including the names of the provinces.

Hong Xiuquan made full use of his reader's savvy to deal with this problem, and as a result, the names of many provinces became very funny. For example, Shandong and Shanxi were changed to Shandong and Shanxi, Beijing, the capital of the Qing Dynasty, was changed to Sinli Province, Yunnan was changed to Yunan, Guizhou was changed to Guizhou, Heilongjiang was changed to Wulongjiang, Guangxi was changed to Guifu, and Xinjiang, Jiangxi, and Zhejiang were changed to Xinjiang, Jiangxi, and Zhejiang.

In addition to some provinces, Hong Xiuquan also added place names such as Tianpu Province (now Jiangpu District, Nanjing) and Sufu Province (now eastern Jiangsu). Most of the provinces that have not been mentioned have not been renamed, as far as I know, or I have limited information.

So, what was the principle that Hong Xiuquan and others followed when changing the name of the province? Changing the name of a province requires a certain amount of technical content, but in Hong Xiuquan's view, this is not a problem, as long as you grasp a major principle, that is, evasion.

That is, if the place name ** appears with the same words as their kings, it needs to be changed, such as changing "mountain" to "Shandong" and "Shanxi" to avoid Feng Yunshan, "Yun" to "Yunnan" to avoid Xiao Chaogui, and "Gui" to "Guizhou" to avoid Xiao Chaogui.

In some place names, when the names of these kings appear, they need to be rewritten. For example, "Chang" was changed to "advocate" or "cang", "xiu" was changed to "embroidery", "quan" was changed to "quan", and "qing" was changed to "jing".

The basis for changing "Jiang" to "Jiang" is not obvious, probably because Hong Xiuquan later divided the king with this character. However, if you want to avoid it completely, the names of provinces and places in China will probably need to be changed.

This is a great demonstration of the initiative and has given many places a new look. It was not uncommon to shy away from changing names in feudal dynasties, mainly to highlight the supremacy of the emperor and also to show the limitations of the feudal imperial system.

If the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom succeeded, then China's place names would be dizzying.

When the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement was in full swing, Hong Xiuquan and other leaders did not think deeply about how to create a real peaceful and prosperous era, but lost themselves under the ** of power, and extremely yearning for the system of feudal emperors.

This trend undoubtedly indicates that the future of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom movement will not be long-lasting. History has given us experience and lessons, and those regimes that cannot truly think about the people will inevitably lead to extinction, and the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom is no exception.

In 1872, the last Taiping army led by Li Wencai (the remnant of Shi Dakai) was wiped out in Datang, Guizhou, and the Taiping Rebellion completely disappeared into history.

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